Upheaval

Imagine this: one of the country's top hospital administrators partners with one of the nation's top branding and public relations experts. They joined forces in Naples, Florida, to lead a premiere healthcare organization during a management crisis that split the hospital and the community. But as this crisis boils, another looms.

COVID-19 is bearing down on America, making the conflict in management seem tiny in comparison to this existential threat.

The story that unfolded here took various forms at every one of America’s 2,903 community hospitals. Upheaval offers an inside look as one very attentive community gathered as never before to deal with this life-and-death situation.

Thankfully, management had already begun a new day of openness, community, and physician partnership, and an appeal for confidence and understanding. Other hospitals, once competitors, became eager partners in the face of this threat. The board of trustees was alert and gathered vital community leaders together. Doctors locked arms and braced.

Naples created a pluralistic, collaborative organization just in time. Led by the physicians, a war room strategy developed among all the community providers, and a new spirit of openness and communication, vital in a pandemic, matured.

They quickly got to work engaging the entire community.

It was frightening locking down society, wearing masks, creating isolation rooms, and hitting new lows in employee morale.

Recruitment became difficult. Nurses worked double shifts. The news media covered every chirp, and finances looked bad.

It should not surprise us that Naples, a community that appreciates and admires excellent community healthcare, rallied to their distress call for help.

This community, led capably by the physicians, put together vast resources to confront the constantly changing threat. Luckily, authors Paul Hiltz and Amanda Lucey kept notes, including insights and the courage of the people behind the closed doors of isolated COVID-19 patients.

Those stories are offered here as a management primer on crisis management, allowing the healthcare team’s performance to re-create the brand with their heroism, and as a warning to communities across the country: connect and stay connected with your constituents, because one day, you will need each other desperately.