A Grandiose Mission or a Performative Statement?

We all know the companies that put out these big vision statements about how they’re changing healthcare.  Then, you find out they’re really just a simple analytics company or glorified pager.  Not that those aren’t important, but the mission statements of companies don’t often align with what they actually do.

I was reminded of this when Vik Bakhru, MD shared the following tweet in last night’s #hcldr Twitter chat:

I love his description of grandiose missions versus performative statements.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s great that a company has a big vision.  It’s been proven that employees working at organizations with a valuable vision are happier.  Check out research on Zookeeper job satisfaction and you’ll see what I mean.

The problem that I think Dr. Bakhru highlights is when there’s not alignment between that vision and what’s actually possible.  To pull from my friend Dr. Nick, healthcare is very much about incremental progress which incrementally over time is transformative.  You can’t fake it til you make it in healthcare nearly as easy as you can in other industries.  The healthcare industrial complex won’t accept it and in most cases that’s a good thing.  There are literally lives on the line.

Dream big…yes!  But make sure those dreams are grounded in reality.

While the above often applies more to health IT startups than more established companies, this did make me curious as to what the top 3 hospital EHR vendors have for their missions.  Here’s a small piece from Cerner, MEDITECH, and Epic‘s about us pages.

Cerner:

Here’s the last paragraph:

It’s our mission to relentlessly seek breakthrough innovation that will shape healthcare of tomorrow. And we believe that what we do doesn’t just impact healthcare – it impacts the world. It’s why, more than ever, healthcare is too important to stay the same.™

Sounds like a great mission.  I think they’re right that EHR software does impact the world.  I’m trying to think of the last breakthrough innovation that came out of Cerner though.  I don’t see everything, so I’d love to hear what you think.  Plus, it would be fun to dive into whether the EHR was a breakthrough innovation or not.  I’ll be interested to see what their new CEO, David Feinberg, does with this mission.  He laid out why he chose Cerner recently.

MEDITECH:

Their page is lengthy, but here are the headlines:

  • The best care. Humanly possible.
  • Innovation is our mission.
  • Achieving industry-wide recognition.
  • You can depend on us.

I actually think this mission is a reflection of MEDITECH.  It’s based on the practical elements that they provide their users.  Not overly grandiose which likely aligns with many of their customers.  The innovation one is interesting to me since their list doesn’t feel that innovative, but that’s similar to my comments about Cerner above.

Epic:

I’d describe Epic’s page more like the Instagram version of their company.  I guess this approach likely says something about their company too.  Here’s the In A Nutshell section:

Founded in a basement in 1979 with 1½ employees, Epic develops software to help people get well, help people stay well, and help future generations be healthier.

I’d be interested to hear from Epic customers to see if they think Epic fulfills this vision.  I think it’s the doctors that fulfill that vision, not Epic.  Might have been more accurate to say that Epic helps a healthcare organization bill well, meet regulations well, and to help future regulations and reimbursement requirements be met also.

Ok, I might be pushing that a little too far.  Having the right data at the right place can help a patient get better care.  Now that the data is in the EHR, we can do lots of cool things if Epic lets innovators into their data.  It’s definitely progress, but there’s still a long ways to go.

All in all, I wonder how many people actually have ever looked at these mission statements.  Do these mission statements really matter too much?  It likely matters more with smaller companies.  What matters more for these larger companies is things like Epic’s 10 Commandments and 10 Principles.  That’s more of an indication of the culture of the company.

Do you have some favorite health IT mission statements?  Share your favorite in the comments and on social media with the hashtag #HITsm.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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