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HCO Fall Conference Date Pending

 

2010 HCO Fall Conference

Date to be determined.

Your HCO Board of Directors will be meeting soon to discuss topics and locations for the Fall Conference. Please let us know if you have any ideas for speakers or activities.  

Conference Registration Form Pending

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Lessons Learned – ONA Strike 2001-02

Marlys Pierson, University News and Publications

LISTEN AND LEARN

Don’t wait until you are in the middle of the battle to listen and learn; positive change may involve some pain, but it does not require a war.

• Develop and maintain open lines of communication with key players from the most senior executives to the most junior employees — including nurses in all categories. Enlist champions at all levels.
• Use your communications skills to help all of these key players understand and address concerns, both yours and theirs.
• Develop strategies for problem-solving and for rechanneling negative energy.
• Take a reasonable amount of time to think through all strategies, even those driven by consensus and positive energy from within. Don’t leap before you look.
• Help everyone understand the value of expeditious, accurate, concise and audience-appropriate communication. Use historical examples of good and bad crisis communications to help in this effort. (e. g. Not necessary to use OHSU history, but national PR situations everybody will remember like the Tylenol scare, or the way the Red Cross handled the AIDS crisis or the recent David Letterman/Ted Koppel hoopla.)

BE INVOLVED — EARLY

Communication specialists should be an integral part of the planning process, and should participate on at least three of the key decision-making teams:

• Hospital operations
• Labor negotiations
• Strategic planning

BE PREPARED — ANTICIPATE / ORGANIZE

Have a Strategic Plan — Don’t Wait Till the Crisis is Imminent

1. Get input from units and individuals most likely to be directly involved: media relations, internal communications, budget and finance, legal counsel, telecommunications, ITG, security, admitting, nursing service, trauma service, administration, etc. Soliciting input from a variety of sources will help create a workable plan that will be widely accepted, and that will establish expectations for staffing and service.

2. Outline the most likely issues, concerns, questions and scenarios, and evaluate the consequences and outcomes (short and long term) to related decisions.

3. Identify key internal and external constituencies and stakeholders who need to receive information, including nurses, other employees, community health care leadership, key legislators/governor, key donors, patients/patient families, vendors, students, affiliates, media, etc.

4. Develop a global template to guide specific activities such as internal communications, government relations and media relations:

• Agree on lines of authority and responsibility. Specifically, decide who is the point person responsible for various communication activities, decisions, approvals, etc. (e.g. Who decides what communications go out, when, why, to whom; who decides content; who writes copy; who approves; who serves as spokespersons, etc.)
• Develop a strategy for collecting, coordinating and disseminating information. Identify key contacts for obtaining reliable, accurate and timely information. Speak with one voice. (Amen!)
• Identify and develop key messages and communication tools for the constituencies.

5. Be flexible and responsive. Even the best preparation is likely to fall short of anticipating every possible scenario. In crisis communications, there are a million shades of gray.

Collect the Facts and Keep Them Current — A Few Examples

• Community standards for wages and benefits (clinical nurses, inpatient nurses — non-critical care and critical care nurses, replacement nurses)
• Replacement nurse stats, including number of nurses, quality indicators such as licensure, training/education, et al.
• Related historical perspective and trends
• Financial realities of OHSU as they relate to various options/decisions
• Staffing and other operational statistics

Develop Key Messages — Before You’re on the Front Lines

1. Agree on key messages, test messages — and then STAY on message. Message examples during OHSU strike included:

• First and foremost, OHSU will provide safe, quality patient care.
• OHSU values its nurses.
• OHSU’s decisions have both short- and long-term implications for all of OHSU’s employees and programs; for the financial stability of OHSU; and for the entire metropolitan health care environment.

2. Keep messages clear and concise.

3. Messages should reinforce the institution’s mission and values. Use this opportunity to educate the public about your institution.

4. Messages should be factual, objective and constructive. Take the high ground.

5. Messages should reflect compassion, understanding and respect.

6. Messages should provide information that recognizes the effects of decisions on the broader community (other OHSU employees/programs, other health care providers, health care costs).

7. Messages should allow for flexibility and uncertainty. (Don’t say, for example, "Operations will run at as usual.")

8. Message should be timely and frequent in order to help avoid misinformation, rumors and an information vacuum that can be filled by others.

9. Use core messages as the foundation for more detailed information when called upon to respond to constituents' concerns.

10. Avoid getting into a public war of words with adversaries, and snuff out rogue communications from within before they occur. Don’t let anyone’s personal feelings about public criticism sway how the institution’s key messages are delivered and reinforced.

Develop Specific Communication Plans for Internal Communications, Media Relations and Government/Community Leadership Relations (compatible with global strategic plan above)

1. Outline potential challenges, opportunities, issues, questions.

2. Agree on strategies and responses, including access to facilities, what information will or won’t be shared, legal/contract issues, privacy issues, communication tools, timing, training, information and physical resources and needs, etc.

3. Check availability, costs and currency of communication tools and systems such as mailing lists, electronic lists, fax lists, ads, printers/publications, mailing houses, voice mail/beeper resources.

Identify and Assign Responsibilities — Carefully

1. Identify internal communication team, media relations team and support team

• Establish coordination methodologies among these communication team members, who will be obtaining information for the planning/strategy teams (above) and other key contacts.
• Identify and assign specific tasks and responsibilities.
• Assess your communication staffing needs and arrange for back up, breaks, support.
• Let your media and internal communities know who the communication team members are and how they can be reached at all times.

2. Identify key institutional auxiliary resources that play a communication role by the very nature of their jobs: public safety, admitting, human relations/personnel, telecommunications, printing, mail department, volunteers and board members.

3. Identify key community resources that can provide credibility and support, including perspective, information, experience, letters to the editor, op-ed support, etc. Examples include Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, insurance companies, other health care providers, OHSU and community nurses, patients, students, etc.

4. Identify spokespersons

• Consider presentation skills and impact (verbal and visual) in addition to knowledge.
• Consider short- and long-term implications of these spokesperson selections on negotiation process, job responsibilities/pressures, relationships, emotional toll, etc.
• Conduct role-playing/training sessions, anticipating difficult questions and situations.
• Review key messages periodically so that spokespersons stay on message.

When All Is Said and Done

1. Get together with your staff and advisory group to analyze the results of your strategy and subsequent actions. Rewrite your procedures based on what you have learned.

2. Prepare a summary report for the files, including media coverage, internal communications, etc.

3. Report the results of your efforts to key administrators and other constituents. Let them know what you did well, what needs to be changed and what you learned.

**********************************************

Media hints

• Explain what has occurred in an honest and open manner. Do not be defensive. If the situation requires more investigation, tell the media that you will report back to them. Discuss what actions/solutions will be forthcoming. If there is relevant information that you cannot share because of confidentiality or other legal issues, explain these limitations.
• Keep your promises. Provide follow-up information as it evolves, especially about what is being done to make sure (if possible) the situation does not happen again. Always work with your advisory group. Don't make decisions in isolation, and don't let anyone else do so either. Make sure there is agreement, or at least understanding, about what, when and how information is released. Keep your internal constituents informed before the media.
• It would be nice if all media calls could be handled by one person, preferably between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Unfortunately, some news -- often crisis news -- attracts wide interest. Phones ring night and day. You'll need an organized way to manage requests for information.
• Work with your designated spokesperson to determine when he or she is available to respond to follow-up requests that cannot be handled by media relations staff. Try to establish a time so you can tell the media when the expert will be calling them back. Be sensitive to media deadlines.
• To avoid confusion and duplication of effort, divide your media relations responsibilities according to geography and type of media. For example, one person might handle all the national radio and print reporters; another might arrange television interviews.
• Be proactive. Think in advance as a team about contextual angles you’d like to see covered. Then, when the initial onslaught has passed, pitch those angles to reporters you trust.
• Divide up responsibility for keeping in touch with the advisory team and others involved, such as patient, patient's family, etc.
• Meet with each other regularly for updates on requests, plans, information, etc.
• Keep a media log with dates, times, contacts and action taken.
• Help key players on the inside understand that it may take time for the media to absorb your messages and present them in the appropriate context. If the media misses the message, try presenting the same message in a simpler way rather than changing the message in response to bad or inadequate coverage.

Internal communications hints

• Educate, inform — don’t editorialize. Be open, honest, informative and objective with your internal audiences. Stick to the facts. Do not take sides, use disrespectful rhetoric or editorialize.
• Remember that any internal message has the potential to appear externally, including person-to-person e-mails.
• Be consistent with internal messages and public (media) messages. When possible, use the exact same language.
• Build support from within by educating internal audiences early and often about both the concrete facts and the big-picture context.
• Reinforce internal messages for the duration of the crisis. Have archives available on your intranet. Don’t assume one-time internal communication reaches everybody.
• Keep your ear to the ground for internal misunderstanding of the issues and rumor mongering. Use clear communication to help diffuse this, and ideally to prevent it before it starts.