Why High-Performing Health Systems Need an Outside Perspective
Summary
- Even high-performing health systems can benefit from stepping back and seeing familiar challenges in a new way. Learn how St. Joseph's Health System gained clarity, alignment, and direction through an IHI diagnostic assessment.
"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different."
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1937
What is the value of a fresh pair of eyes?
Healthcare leaders routinely seek input from multidisciplinary teams, peer organizations, and outside experts for a simple reason: different perspectives can reveal opportunities that might otherwise remain hidden. This becomes especially important when organizations are tackling complex challenges such as patient safety, workforce well-being, health equity, quality, or governance.
While leaders know their organizations better than anyone, proximity can sometimes make it harder to see underlying patterns, challenge assumptions, or identify new paths forward. That is where a structured diagnostic or discovery assessment can help.
Through its diagnostic and discovery assessments, IHI helps health systems examine complex challenges through a broader systems lens. These assessments are designed not to judge or rank organizations, but to support learning and improvement.
For St. Joseph's Health System in Ontario, Canada, that broader perspective proved valuable.
"The diagnostic process helped our team step back from day-to-day operational demands and view our work through a broader systems lens," said Dr. Mike Heenan, President & CEO at St. Joseph’s Health System. "It highlighted opportunities that may have otherwise remained hidden and helped us more intentionally prioritize our improvement efforts."
A Broader Systems Lens
A diagnostic assessment combines insights from people within the organization with perspectives from external experts who have worked with health systems facing similar challenges. The process typically includes interviews, document reviews, stakeholder engagement, onsite observations, and a report outlining opportunities and recommendations for improvement.
According to Carrie Fletcher, Executive Vice President, People, Culture & Strategy and Chief Administration Officer at St. Joseph's Health System, one of the most valuable aspects of the experience was IHI's ability to adapt as new information emerged.
"While onsite, the IHI team adjusted their agenda based on emerging information," she said. "This willingness to adjust led to some of our most urgent recommendations. It really showed that this was not a 'checkbox' activity, but truly met the existing and emerging needs of the organization."
Building Alignment Across the Organization
The diagnostic assessment also emphasized broad stakeholder engagement. Through stakeholder mapping and interviews, IHI engaged frontline staff, union leadership, professional practice teams, patient support services, corporate support services, and organizational leaders. Bringing together these diverse perspectives helped ensure recommendations reflected the realities of day-to-day work while also building organizational alignment.
That combination of internal experience and external perspective can be powerful.
"Having an external partner brought objectivity to the conversation," says Seema Sharma, Director Occupational Health & Safety at St. Joseph’s Health System said. "IHI challenged our assumptions, validated areas of strength, and encouraged us to explore opportunities that may have been difficult to identify from within the organization."
Clarity Creates Momentum
Ultimately, the greatest value of a diagnostic assessment is not simply identifying challenges. It is helping organizations determine where to focus their energy and how to move forward.
"One of the greatest benefits of the process was the clarity it provided," Sharma said. "Rather than simply identifying challenges, it helped us develop a clearer understanding of where to focus our energy and how to translate those insights into actionable next steps."
As health systems navigate increasingly complex challenges, the need for fresh perspectives remains as relevant as ever. Sometimes the most important discoveries do not come from looking somewhere new. They come from looking at familiar challenges differently and gaining the clarity needed to make meaningful progress.
Nana A. Y. Twum-Danso, MD, MPH, FACPM, is the former Chief Impact Officer at IHI.
Photo by wavebreakmedia_micro
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