Bringing the Balanced Scorecard to the Front Lines to Improve Outcomes

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is Hartford HealthCare’s roadmap for success and outlines the system’s priority initiatives for the year.

To help ensure that employees throughout the organization are aware of these goals, and understand their role in achieving them, Hartford HealthCare has introduced “The Game Plan.’’ It’s a simple pocket-size trifold card that translates the balanced scorecard into plain language. It is designed to help employees understand our annual improvement priorities, why they matter and how they can contribute.

In easy-to-follow, graphic format, the Game Plan answers the questions:

• What do we stand for?
• What will we focus on?
• What will we do this year?
• How will we measure success?

And encourages everyone to ask: “How will I contribute this year?”

Similar to our H3W Leadership Behaviors card, the Game Plan will be provided to every employee. It will be discussed in huddles and other venues where employees gather to participate in process and performance improvement. The Game Plan is a useful backdrop for any conversation related to goals, strategy, growth, change management or any HHC initiative. Everything we do should be tied to our mission, vision and values — and the Game Plan can help our employees make that connection.

The Game Plan ties in to HHC’s efforts to strengthen employee engagement by helping employees to understand the “why” behind what we are doing together for our communities. It will help employees connect the dots between their individual roles and HHC’s improvement priorities.

Employees who understand and buy into HHC’s organization, our strategy and our goals are more likely to perform well and feel good about what they are doing. This should result in improved patient/customer service, experience and outcomes.