I recently visited some friends who have young children, and they happened to be watching the Disney film Big Hero 6, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature this year. In the movie, a gifted young student develops a robotic “health care companion,” which can diagnose, treat and prevent illness. It walks, talks, […]
Author: Dalal Haldeman
My Top 7 Takeaways from ABC’s Richard Besser
Richard Besser recently came to Baltimore to speak at one of our grand rounds, and I was impressed by the personal insight he shared. A pediatrician who did his residency at Johns Hopkins, Richard served as the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is now the chief health and medical […]
Are multitaskers asking for it?
Now for a pet peeve. I can’t stand when people constantly check email during small group meetings. There. I said it. We’re all busy people, I know. But chronically looking at your phone in small meetings where a discussion is taking place shows a lack of respect for the people who are actually present. Do you […]
What People Want: Clarity
I spend a lot of time in meetings where health-care-specific terms are the norm. Bench to bedside, coordination of care, population health and medical destination all come to mind. While people in the industry may know what these phrases mean, it’s entirely possible that crucial staff members who are less involved in communicating the business […]
Trust: The Key Ingredient in Approaching Change
In our increasingly fast-paced work lives, change happens rapidly. In academic medicine specifically, we’re adapting to shifting payment models, diminished federal funding for research, and an increased need to deliver better, more compassionate care to our patients at a lower cost. We’re evolving our communications and developing new tools to better understand our patients’ personal […]
Why We Itch and a Host of Cutting-Edge Health Content: The New Johns Hopkins Health Review
At Johns Hopkins Medicine, the sheer volume of content that we create for physicians, patients, their families and the world is staggering. In the school of medicine alone, we and our faculty members develop all of the content and multimedia materials for hopkinsmedicine.org. We issue dozens of online and printed publications for physicians, patients and […]
Tapping Innovative Solutions and Technology
I recently read a New York Times blog post about how mobile technologies and cloud-based computing are changing the way companies in nearly every industry do business. The writer pointed out that tech firms are adapting, both in how they package and market their offerings and by creating new products to suit corporations’ evolving needs. […]
Nurturing Open Discussion
Fostering an open environment where people feel free to express their perspectives is one of the most important things that you can do as a leader. While it’s common for people to have different ideas on how to arrive at a shared goal, many often do not feel comfortable sharing their thoughts in meetings or […]
Own the Organization
Leaders often talk about instilling a “sense of ownership” in the people they lead—a pride and stewardship of work that transcends the rote completion of projects. It makes sense. When you own a home, for example, things matter differently than when you’re renting. Is the heat that’s trapped in the roof going to one day […]
Employee Engagement: Why does it matter? Who can influence it?
Though the concept of “employee engagement” is sometimes dismissed by people who see it as empty corporate jargon, it can be so much more than that. With my team at Johns Hopkins, I make it about caring for and respecting my colleagues first. I focus on their unique contributions and talents, with the aim of […]
Out-of-the-Box Perspectives 