Social Capital in Healthcare

Harness the power of social capital to improve the efficacy and efficiency of healthcare organizations

Written by Thomas Lee, Chief Medical Officer at Press Ganey, Social Capital in Healthcare describes a new and powerful framework for improving healthcare, arguing that managers should approach the work of building trust, teamwork, and high reliability with the same intensity and discipline as CFOs use when managing the finances of their organizations.

Lee's powerful framework integrates management priorities such as safety, quality, patient experience, and workforce resilience/burnout/loyalty, demonstrating through data that these “silos” are in fact intertwined, and the work of improving them is best taken on with a single focus: improving social capital.

In this book, readers will learn about:

• Key social capital themes in healthcare, including trust, respect, connectedness, and teamwork
• The necessity of social capital in healthcare due to changes in medicine, patients, and society
• Building social capital through transitivity, reciprocity, bridging connections, and driving the right values
• Social capital initiatives at institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Houston Methodist, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Drawing upon deeply respected work from sociology, psychology, and business strategy, Social Capital in Healthcare earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of all forward-thinking healthcare executives, managers, and consultants.

Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 A Primer on Social Capital 9

2 Why Healthcare Needs Social Capital Now 35

3 Building, Strengthening, and Using Social Capital Connections 67

4 Building Teams and Networks in Healthcare 93

5 Measuring Social Capital 123

6 Social Capital as the Core of Healthcare Strategy 149

7 How to Be a Chief Officer for Social Capital 169

References 199

Acknowledgments 207

About the Author 211

Index 213

THOMAS H. LEE, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer of Press Ganey and the Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Catalyst. He is a practicing physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and has 18 years’ experience as a senior leader at Mass-General Brigham. He’s an expert in healthcare strategy and policy and a member of the Panel of Health Advisors of the Congressional Budget Office.

In Social Capital in Healthcare: How Trust and Teamwork Drive Organizational Excellence, Chief Medical Officer at Press Ganey and Brigham and Women’s Hospital physician Dr. Thomas H. Lee delivers a transformative new perspective on how to improve healthcare. The author challenges managers to become COs for social capital. He offers a powerful framework to build trust, teamwork, and reliability with the same intensity and discipline that Chief Financial Officers bring to managing their organizations’ money.

Dr. Lee’s insights integrate management priorities—like safety, quality, patient experience, and workforce resilience—demonstrating that these goals are, in fact, intertwined. He convincingly argues that the work of improving all these areas is best undertaken with a single focus: building social capital.

Social Capital in Healthcare uses modern data to tie together key social capital themes in healthcare, including trust, respect, connection, and teamwork, and shows you the necessity of a holistic view of social capital in a healthcare environment undergoing dramatic changes in medicine, patients, and society. It also walks you through how to build social capital by forming connections, strengthening teams, and creating networks, and transmitting the right values and behaviors through them.

Finally, the book presents examples from institutions like the Mayo Clinic, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic to demonstrate the tremendous value of successful social capital initiatives.

Perfect for healthcare executives, managers, consultants, and other industry leaders, Social Capital in Healthcare draws on the latest peer-reviewed work in sociology, psychology, and business strategy to earn a well-deserved place in the libraries of healthcare professionals everywhere.

Praise for SOCIAL CAPITAL IN HEALTHCARE

“Tom Lee’s timely and engaging book offers practical suggestions for how healthcare managers can, and should, strengthen the social networks in their organizations, and how they can use them to create the kind of social capital that fosters excellent team performance and superb patient outcomes.”
—Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, Yale University

“It’s hard to imagine this book coming at a more important time. Dr. Lee names something—social capital—that healthcare has struggled for decades to understand. With this revelatory book, Dr. Lee has made building social capital a core responsibility for all healthcare leaders. Even more, he has provided a roadmap to grow and nurture the social bonds that enable all of us to do our best work in service of what truly matters to patients.”
—Dr. Kedar Mate, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

“Social Capital in Healthcare is based on the author’s vast experience in multiple healthcare institutions. It explains the critical need for this unappreciated asset which can elevate leadership on all levels.”
—Toby Cosgrove, MD, former CEO, Cleveland Clinic

“Tom perfectly distills the concept of ‘social capital’ and how it is the lynchpin for an industry as it regains its footing and strives to transform itself along the way.”
—Jaewon Ryu, CEO, Risant Health

“Once again, Tom Lee brings his unique insights, this time to highlight the importance of teamwork and trust on the operational dynamics of our modern healthcare delivery system. When we invest in building social capital, our staff and patients are better for it, and Lee shows us the way.”
—Fred Cerise, CEO, Parkland Health

“For those who want to understand how influence is earned, this book is a toolbox for being more effective in work, family, and social settings. This is a wonderfully interesting and informative read.”
—Jonathan Perlin, CEO, The Joint Commission

“In this beautifully written book, Dr. Lee makes a compelling case that one of the most important things a physician leader can do to support colleagues and help patients is to build social capital among the care team.”
—Andrew Bindman, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Hospitals

“Social capital, quite simply the quality of our connections with others, forms the foundation of efficient, patient-centered care and engagement and meaning for healthcare providers. Dr. Thomas H Lee has written a compelling new book that explains this and illustrates how social capital is the key to turning healthcare around.”

—Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School and author of Right Kind of Wrong