THEMES

Organizations, Leadership and Complexity

More We Than Me-How the Fight Against MRSA Led to a New Way of Collaborating at Albert Einstein Medical Center

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Hundreds of people at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia have joined SMASH, the organization-wide effort to fight Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). Using Positive Deviance, an innovative social change process, a broad cross section of employees have worked together to forge new solutions, new relationships and some very encouraging results in declining infection rates. .
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JAMA Reports More Deadly MRSA Infections: Prevention Research Shows Promising Results

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The October 17, 2007 issue of JAMA includes a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows US rates of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in healthcare settings are much higher then previously estimated. According to the article, almost 19,000 deaths are associated with invasive MRSA infections.
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Thursday Complexity Post - A Pox on Parties?

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Have you ever been to a chickenpox party? Some adults think deliberately exposing young children to common childhood diseases helps build stronger immune systems and is safer than giving them vaccines.
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"Do What You Can, With What You Have, Where You Are" - A Quest to Eliminate MRSA

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This story is about the use of Positive Deviance played in efforts by the staff the VA hospital in Pittsburgh to eliminate MRSA transmissions. MRSA is a virulent pathogen that cannot be killed by most commonly used antibiotics. Many authorities recognize tht the fight against MRSA is more of a behavioral and cultural challenge than it is a technical and medical problem.
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Thursday Complexity Post - Gowns, Gloves and Culture Change

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The VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) has reduced hospital infections and saved money in the process, a New York Times story reports today.
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Gowns, Gloves and Culture Change Help Battle Dangerous Pathogens

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The Veterans Health Administration Pittsburgh Health System (VAPHS) has reduced hospital infections and saved money in the process, a New York Times story reports today. The story, by Kevin Sack, reports that the infections of MRSA, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, one of the most virulent drug resistant pathogens, has plunged 78 percent in the facility's 40-bed surgical unit since 2001. The story also quotes Dr. Rajiv Jain, the hospital's chief of staff, as saying that the infection control program costs about $500,000 a year, and the reduction in the number of infected patients has produced a net saving of nearly $900,000.
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When the Task is Accomplished, Can We Say We Did It Ourselves? A Quest to Eliminate MRSA at the Veterans Administrations' Hospitals in Pittsburgh

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This story is about the quest at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) to eliminate the transmission of deadly healthcare associated infections, specifically Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA. Using the social and behavioral change process Positive Deviance, the facility was able to engage the innovativeness and energy of hundreds of hospital staff members to uncover and create practices to prevent transmission of MRSA and to spread these practices to their colleagues.
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Positive Deviance, Culture Change & Success Against MRSA

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VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) is making notable progress in reducing the transmission of deadly healthcare associated infections, specifically Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA. Using the social and behavioral change process Positive Deviance, the facility has engaged the innovativeness and energy of hundreds of hospital staff members and patients to uncover and create practices to prevent transmission of MRSA and to spread these practices to their colleagues.
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Thursday Complexity Post - Brain Architecture Supports Subjective Experience

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How does the infinitely complex system of interacting networks with 100 billion neurons and 60 trillion synapses in the human brain allow us to think, feel, remember and develop social emotions and moral perspectives?
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emerging, Winter, 2006 Edition - The MRSA Issue

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Every year, two million patients acquire infections while being treated in US hospitals, and a growing number of the infection-causing microbes are resistant to antibiotics. In this special issue read about MRSA, the cause of 126,000 hospitalizations and thousands of deaths every year, and what a pioneering group of hospitals is doing, using the social change process Positive Deviance, to prevent the spread of MRSA.
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Thursday Complexity Post - Avoid Infectious Fashion

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Decorated designer scrubs maybe in vogue among health care fashionistas, but infection control experts say no hospital garb should be worn outside of work.
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Thursday Complexity Post - Positive Deviance Aids Battle Against Microbes

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Jerry Sternin explained the concept of Positive Deviance to audiences at the Said Business School in Oxford, England, recently, and his message may have had special resonance with people who worry about burgeoning infections rates in British hospitals.
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Plexus Institute, with support of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, is working to fight deadly antibiotic resistant infections in healthcare facilities

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Plexus Institute has received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support a new initiative to save lives and protect patients by preventing Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) infections in healthcare facilities. Hospital-associated infections have been a problem in the United States for over 30 years. According to the CDC, in hospitals alone, hospital-associated infections account for an estimated 2 million infections, 90,000 deaths and $4.5 billion in excess healthcare costs annually. Many of those infections are resistant to antibiotics; MRSA is the most common cause of these infections. Plexus now a nationwide network of partner hospitals working on an initiative to use positive deviance, a behavioral change process, to halt the spread of MRSA infections.
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Thursday Complexity Post - Positive Deviants

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How do you bridge the gap between what is and what could be? Jerry Sternin, who pioneered social applications of Positive Deviance, describes some creative pathways to that bridge in "Your Company's Secret Change Agent," a Harvard Busiess Review article he wrote with consultant and author Richard Tanner Pascale. Are some people in the organization doing things differently and better? Learn from them. When managers try to impose change designed by outside experts, they are apt to face resistance and rejection. When indigenous successes of "positive deviants" are brought into the mainstream, helpful changes are enthusiastically embraced.
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emerging, August, September, October 2004 Edition

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This issue of emerging explores ipositive deviance, a new approach to social and behavioral change pioneered by Jerry and Monique Sternin. The process was created by the Sternins in their work in developing countries on such intractable issues as childhood malnutrtion in Vietnam, neonatal mortablity in the mountainous regions of Pakistan, and female genital cutting in Egypt. The issue also includes reviews of two books, Weaving Complexity and Business and The Wisdom of Crowds.
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