100 Days of Listening at Salus

Well, it looks like winter, or at least a sample of what winter is going to be like here in Philadelphia is upon us! Time really flies when you're having fun so it's hard for me to believe that I've been at Salus for almost 6 months now. A highlight of my time here has been getting to know the extremely talented group of students, faculty and staff - AND analyzing the results from my 100 days of listening. On Thursday and Friday of last week the Salus President's Council and I went off campus and conducted an extremely fruitful and rewarding facilitated off-site designed to set the stage for charting the course for our university over the next 10+ years. Informing our discussion were the results of the 100 days of listening, current and future healthcare delivery trends, the fiscal environment - both current and what we believe the future holds - as well as the University's current strategic plan.  


We began our two-day excursion into the future by conducting a very insightful, candid and successful team building discussion that included each of us taking the Predictive Index, a scientifically-based assessment that provides leaders and individuals with accurate, actionable data quantifying the unique motivating needs and behavioral drivers that keep people going. The good news is that we have an extraordinarily balanced team, which helps to explain why everyone works so well together and why we have such a very high-performing organization. We then went about the task of reviewing the results of the 100 days of listening and began to set the priorities and goals that will inform the next iteration of our strategic planning cycle. For me, one of the most powerful parts of our off-site was listening the our President's Council member's individual vision for our future.  It's exciting that we are all aligned in the fact that we believe Salus is poised to effectively engage in the nation's debate and discussion on how healthcare will be delivered well into this century and beyond. We are also lockstep in our thinking about how our priorities need to remain on our students, the quality of education we provide as well as faculty and staff development. Central to our thinking was our continued emphasis on community outreach and development of programs that are consistent with setting a high benchmark for inter-professional education and an integrated delivery model of healthcare. 

We are unanimous that our destiny is one of advocacy, innovation and pushing the envelope of what's within the realm of the possible, given the breadth of knowledge, experience and energy our students and faculty bring to the table of American healthcare. I'll provide more detail as the weeks progress but I wanted you to know the high level of energy and alignment that emerged from our off-site. We're all excited about sharing this with all of the University community and working with you towards development of tangible goals and metrics. Have a great week and a safe and restful Thanksgiving!