My column, Contrarian Edge, appears monthly in Inside Healthcare, clearly the best reporting on what real leaders are doing to run better hospitals. I love these folks, chiefly because they let me say the unthinkable and it's cheaper than therapy! I hope you will enjoy my efforts to be outside the proverbial box.

Idea: Use these one pagers as a monthly Leadership Letter with a cover from your CEO.

• Confessions of a Consultant.
• The Idiocy of Layoffs.
• Management Malpractice.
• Six Sigma Stop Sign
• Whose Standards? Mom's or the Joint Commission's?
• Sludge Removal.
• Problem Employee or Problem Manager?
• Management Flight Check.
• Where’s the Urgency for the Emergency?
• Management Credo.
• Confidently Incompetent.
• Think Global, Act Local.
• Ditch the System.
• Notes to the New Leader.
• Acres of Diamonds

Other Opinions

I've been disappointed bigtime with JCAHO for 3 reasons:

1. They basically don't get management—instead of setting objectives and deadlines, they have turned into micromanagers of what hospitals do.
2. They have wasted millions of dollars by mandating programs that have resulted in failure after failure. From ORYX to TQM they lurch from one half-baked approach to another.
3. Even worse, JCAHO is the prime enunciator of minimalist standards—philosophically they couldn't be further from what excellence is all about.
   

Want more? Here are some Modern Healthcare editorials:

• Sentinel Event at the JCAHO
• JCAHO—A Fallacy of Best Efforts
• JCAHO No Longer Relevant