Healthcare transformation is more than just throwing technology at problems. The real challenge? Getting people to change how they work. That’s where experience counts. After years in the trenches of healthcare transformation, working in boardrooms and on hospital floors, leaders learn what makes change stick and what makes it fail. Some lessons only come from watching good ideas crash into reality. Others come from seeing small changes snowball into big improvements. Sarah Khan picked up these lessons the hard way, leading transformations across healthcare organizations from coast to coast. Now she’s sharing the three keys that make all the difference.
Defining Clear Outcomes
The first stumbling block Sarah sees? Fuzzy goals. “It’s very easy to have a rosy picture that one is striving for,” she says. But pretty pictures don’t cut it when you’re trying to change how healthcare works. “The vision you want to paint for your providers and your frontline leaders has to be grounded in reality.” She pushes leaders to get specific: “What are the outcomes you expect – is it quality, is it growth, is it satisfaction, is it all three, or something entirely different?” Without clear metrics, even the best plans fall flat. The key is giving people something concrete to work toward, not just nice-sounding goals.
Understanding Your Customers
Most people think healthcare is all about patients. They’re only half right. “The customer in healthcare is not only the patient but also the provider,” Sarah explains. Miss either side of this equation, and your changes won’t stick. Want to know what’s really going on? Get out of your office. Sarah tells healthcare leaders to “put yourself in their shoes and basically walk the path that they encounter in your business.” No amount of data can replace seeing things firsthand.
Empowering the Frontline
Here’s where most transformation efforts go wrong – they ignore the people doing the actual work. Sarah’s third key flips this on its head: “Engaging the Frontline providers and Business Leaders – The Operators – in being part of the solution.” These people aren’t just dealing with problems – they’re sitting on solutions. “Often times they’re the ones who are experiencing and living day-to-day in the current situation which may have multiple pain points,” Sarah points out. But here’s the kicker: “They’re also the ones who bring solutions to the table.”
It’s not rocket science. When people help build the solution, they want it to work. As Sarah puts it, “By involving them in developing the solution and developing the transformation, they’re much more invested in making it successful.” After working with healthcare organizations from the West Coast to the East Coast and everywhere in between, Sarah’s seen these keys work time and again. Sure, every organization has its quirks. But clear outcomes, understanding both sides of the customer equation, and tapping into frontline wisdom? That works everywhere. Sarah bridges old and new in healthcare, using technology to scale what works while fixing what doesn’t. Her three keys remind us that successful transformation isn’t about having the fanciest tools – it’s about getting the fundamentals right. To learn more about Sarah Khan and her approach, check out her LinkedIn profile.
