Within our Medical Whistleblower Organization trust is one of the most important assets we have. It is also the easiest asset to lose and very hard to rebuild. Trust is the key ingredient which leads to relationship building, which in turn leads to cooperative, collaborative opportunities to advance our goals and objectives.
How many of you have developed strategic plans for a non-profit organization? What is the first question one needs to ask in regards to strategic planning? Is it to define what goals and objectives they want to achieve? Where do they want to be in three years or five years from now? And how do you plan to get there?
Some will state that grant writing is the answer. Others have ideas for more direct grass roots ways to raise funds. Often I will hear that money is the answer. Other times I hear that political power is the answer. Many will say that creating strategic alliances or relationships with other organizations is the way to reach our goals, or by increasing our media coverage. Certainly we can improve our direct mail campaigns or other fund raising activities. We can certainly conference with others and discuss how important it is to work cooperatively to reach our common goals. But ultimately we must recognize that the motivating force behind deep social change is a shared emotional bond or trust between people.
In communication it is important to not get lost on focusing on achieving your goals and objectives and thereby failing to recognize that trust is the foundation of all our efforts. When someone goes as far as to ignore the trust factor and move forward with their own agenda, they undermine their own forward progress and will fall short of their ultimate goal.
If increased funding is one of your organization's key strategic goals but you engage in unethical fundraising behavior - such as false advertising or deceptive practices then you might gain in the short run but in the long term you will erode the trust of the public and lose your good name. These unethical practices do not bode well for a non-profit organization’s long term survivability.
We need to look long and hard at ourselves and ask “What are we going to do to earn the trust – both inside and outside of our organization –that will help us form the kind of emotional bond with others that will enable us to achieve our goals and objectives?”
We need to ask who our partners in this fight are. Who are the stakeholders who care about Medical Whistleblower issues? There are of course, the Medical Whistleblowers themselves. But there are also patient advocates. Of these two groups, who do you believe have the greatest number of people, financial resources, or grassroots political power? I assert that it is the Patient Advocates that win that comparison without a doubt.
So we, as Medical Whistleblowers, need to build trust with those who advocate for patient rights. Medical Whistleblowers must be found to be the ultimate safeguard for patient care, safety and human rights. This means we must listen to the patient advocate concerns if they express a lack of confidence in our ability to determine who should have advocacy as a Medical Whistleblower. We also must ask for them to understand the need for restraint with public allegations especially when there may have been Bad Faith Peer Review against a Medical Professional. There will be cases where our advocacy for the medical professional will seem initially to be in conflict with the advocacy for the patient, but on more careful reflection will reveal a commonality of purpose to safeguard the public’s health and safety. Medical Whistleblowers will be found to be the ultimate safeguard for patient care, safety and human rights. Individual cases present many problems which we must face with humility and honesty. It is a sad fact that there are medical professionals who do need to be disciplined, some who even need their medical licenses revoked.
True Medical Whistleblowers are for the integrity of the medical system and the protection of patients.
“When we have the courage to speak out – to break our silence – we inspire the rest of the "moderates" in our communities to speak up and voice their views.”
Sharon Schuster
We, as citizens, must demand open discourse regarding problems in the medical community of Medical Fraud, Abuse and Neglect. The civil liberties of Medical Whistleblowers should not become casualties. We must not punish the “Truth Sayers” but instead create laws to protect their right to provide timely accurate information. Our government and medical community should acknowledge mistakes rather than seek to conceal them. We need to learn to value human expertise and analysis of information.
We need to build a better a better network of communication between the Medical Whistleblowers and those whose help we need. Our partners in this struggle to expose Medical Fraud, Abuse and Neglect come from many professional disciplines – law enforcement officers, legislators, social workers, therapists, patient advocates, the media and attorneys.
We must as medical professionals understand our own professional culture and the professional cultures of those other agencies and individuals we need to interact with. Often our own professional biases places limitations on our ability to understand and respond to law enforcement, legislators and attorneys.
All medical professionals might benefit from learning more about the role of law enforcement and opening a more meaningful communication on areas of common interest. It is my belief that cross training between law enforcement and the medical community would reap benefits to both, and add to our overall understanding of how to address prevention, detection, and response to Medical Fraud, Abuse and Neglect. Medical Professionals are often unaware of their vulnerability to organized crime and have a strained relationship with law enforcement over drug enforcement. But increased reporting and response might benefit both the medical and law enforcement communities.
We need to address cultural differences between organizations and governmental agencies. Medical Whistleblowers need to cultivate cooperative sharing between organizations and learn to bridge the differences between them. We must understand how to initiate change in the system, most importantly cultural change. While government and medical community leaders say that they are open to the issues of change, few are able to translate that understanding into successful action.
Knowledge is power. The greater the Truth, the more psychological obstacles, people and organizations may have to overcome, before accepting it. This highlights the need to strengthen free speech protections for those who raise alarms. It is a sad fact that sounding the alarm has usually resulted in punishment, not reward for Medical Whistleblowers. This reaction to unwelcome truths persists even when the urgent concerns are discretely expressed through proper channels. It is important to our nation’s public health that we not let restrictive measures weaken the already tenuous free speech protections of Medical Whistleblowers who have the critical access to field knowledge. They must be acknowledged as being our first line of contact for gathering information about criminal activity, medical malpractice, human rights violations and even terrorist threats.
Our national decision makers must replace long-term thinking over short-term thinking. Decision makers often want the rewards, but do not welcome the challenging process of changing their orientation in order to successfully integrate the information given by Medical Whistleblowers. This information is often a double-edged sword that must be handled with maturity, for the bare truth is not always easy to face. Politicians or executives may fear the Truth that the whistleblower brings especially if it threatens their own career plans. It is best to approach with humility the change necessary to bring meaningful insight of a problem to a government or organization.
Government officials and corporate executives need to know where they are headed. Those with coherent goals and a willingness to adapt to new information will gain the most. Developing a responsive community or organization is as much a psychological as an analytical or logistical process. The challenge is not just about acquiring valuable information but also about rethinking the organization's accepted beliefs and practices. Both go hand in hand. Accepting the lessons learned from Medical Whistleblowers requires learning how to learn.
Developing an effective organization to serve Medical Whistleblowers is therefore about building an organization of learners. Becoming an intelligent learner is not only about finding valuable information, but also being open to new ideas and concepts. Equally important, is understanding the limitations of one's own cultural or professional framework, transcending one's biases, and recognizing the value of best information sharing practices across cultures. By integrating these practices we will redefine the world in a new way, as a consequence of recreating our relationship to it. Different beliefs lead to different attitudes and practices, which, in turn, create different abilities and disabilities. Professional cultures evolve, that foster or inhibit intelligence. Often these professional cultural influences are powerful and are shared across religions, levels of education, social networks, companies and agencies. Despite the sophistication and size of the medical community, there is still the tendency to “Group Think.”
Each individual's cognitive process is dominated by different affinities and avoidances. Every person, and by extension every organization, has a natural affinity for certain concepts and ideas. While some persons or organizations are fact- oriented, others prefer to use their intuition. Some may be satisfied with creative approximation, while others may need specific details. Preferences and avoidances along key ideas and concepts reveal a person's or organization's approach to the analysis of information.
Because in any bureaucracy there are limited resources, medical bureaucrats, like managers of any type, strive to please their policy bosses and often have a narrowness of perspective. Creative analysis of whistleblower information often requires “Out of the Box” thinking and a willingness to accept change with all its inherent risk.
Creating a culture of change requires continuous integration within the organization. Such meaningful change finds its power in people, not in logic. It rests on a shared emotional understanding and so there is a deep human side to social change. It connects and unites people, offering them something larger than themselves to be part of. It gives them the chance to build something important and to do it with others. Emotions and intuition play a large role. This can be a constructive or a destructive force. We need a better, more robust, efficient social network. We must face the obstacles that divide us and build those bridges to better understanding. Communicating information is most valuable to the public interest when it constantly educates policymakers in a compelling manner.
Trust is easier to destroy than build.
Both sides are always accountable in communication.
Focus on influence not control.
Be constructive and give away credit.
Use your own passion to ignite relationships.
Institutions are the way individuals reach their full potential.
The quality of the founders determines the potential size and influence of the
organizational network.
Quality in the communication protocol is important to its sustainability.
