Founded by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance at TheEEA.org.

A Breakthrough Service for Enhancing Healthcare and Hospitality Performance and the Stakeholder Experience

  • Announcing the Enterprise Engagement Advisory Practice for Healthcare and Hospitality, a service of the Healthcare Management Institute (HMI) of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), offering an innovative approach for healthcare organizations seeking improved performance.
  • Providing a system that is easy to understand, test and implement based on The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Standard 10018 –  Quality People Management.
  • Achieving greater return-on-investment than current recognition, communications, learning and other engagement efforts through a more systematic, scientific approach.
  • Providing training and facilitation through the Enterprise Engagement Alliance Learning and Certification program for education and training of key team members based on the ISO 10018 standards.
  • Implementing success through The Engagement Agency support and managed outsourcing services for implementation and measurement.

Applying a Systematic Approach to Stakeholders in Healthcare and Hospitality to Enhance Performance and Quality of Life

The new Enterprise Engagement Advisory Practice of UTMB’s Healthcare Management Institute provides a practical, easy approach to addressing the healthcare and hospitality fields’ most vexing economic and people challenges. We are among the first to apply a common-sense, research-based approach to engaging all stakeholders to achieve clear goals, better outcomes and a more rewarding experience for everyone involved, usually funded out of money spent on recognition, incentive, communications and learning dollars that can be better utilized through a more efficient and measurable process.

Based on the same principles that helped the world transform Quality Management, and the extensive experience of our founders, Dr. Ron McKinley and Mr. Lee S. Webster, at the front lines of healthcare people management and world-respected ISO human capital standards, HMI’s Enterprise Engagement Advisory Practice helps organizations apply a systematic, practical approach to achieving goals through people. The framework improves efficiency, lowers costs, provides tangible return-on-investment and a better experience for all stakeholders, including patients, employees, volunteers, vendors, communities and financial supporters.

Despite huge investments in marketing, recognition, learning, communications, social media, events and engagement assessment, overall patient, customer, and employee engagement have barely budged. HMI’s Enterprise Engagement Advisory Practice transforms results with a systematic approach using proven quality management approaches supported by common sense.

The Compelling Economics

Benefiting from economics equally applicable to business, healthcare institutions and hospitality firms with high levels of customer, patient, employee and community engagement outperform others because they have:

  • Higher customer and patient satisfaction, faster Medicare reimbursements, more referrals for business or elective and outpatient procedures and less need to invest in difficult-to-measure advertising and outreach efforts.
  • Higher patient, customer, employee and community engagement, satisfaction and higher referral scores.
  • Higher talent retention, lower turnover and recruitment costs.
  • Higher safety and wellness scores and less absenteeism with lower insurance costs over time.
  • Better internal customer service and less workplace aggravation.
  • Lower risk of employee-caused hazards and litigation.
  • More productive community service efforts.
  • A means of objectively assessing and auditing engagement efforts on an ongoing basis with a respected ISO 10018 certification that can be used for disclosures to boards, regulators, communities, employees, patients and vendors.

What Makes HMI’s Enterprise Engagement (EE) Advisory Practice Unique

  • Engagement is not just about employees , customers, or patients, but the entire organization. HMI’s Enterprise Engagement Advisory Practice applies a systematic approach to engagement across the enterprise, integrating issues that get siloed in many organizations, including your investments in marketing, sales and human resources, or such tactics as learning, job design, communications, community and diversity, innovation, rewards and recognition, analytics and more.
    • Many organizations apply a reactive, ad hoc and disconnected approach to these tactics resulting in inefficiencies, internal conflicts, waste and poor outcomes. HMI’s EE Advisory Practice applies the same systematic approach embraced in the ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 Quality People Management standards and the curriculum of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance.
  • HMI provides a complete solution already in place:
    • A clearly established framework and implementation process with clear economics and return-on-investment for healthcare institutions.
    • A concrete model for building return-on-investment into the entire process so that institutions can clearly benchmark and measure performance improvement in both dollars (objective) and stakeholder experience (subjective).
    • A smarter way to design traditional recognition programs in conjunction with other engagement efforts to achieve more measurable results.
    • A transparent framework and implementation process embodied in ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 Quality People Management standards and in new Occupational Health and Safety standards laid out in ISO 45001 that better connect current investments in various external and internal engagement efforts.
    • The Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap book available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com and online training and testing platform of HMI’s education partner, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance and its learning academy at EEA.tmlu.org to ensure proper training.
    • Access to appropriate leadership and coaching, assessment, job design, recruitment, communication, learning, community and diversity, rewards and recognition, technology and analytics services based on client needs; an incomparable managed-outsourcing service for implementation, enabling clients to get a single-source solution specifically designed for their needs with a completely transparent pricing model.
    • Public speaking capabilities to help communicate the vision and implementation process to any audience.
  • The right people and backing. HMI and our EE Advisory Practice bring to the table human resources leaders with extensive experience in healthcare and hospitality based at the University of Texas Medical Branch, a 5-Star Academic Medical Center.
  • A transparent, performance-based model. Based on an anticipated return-on-investment, clients pay fees for advisory services and meeting facilitation necessary to create the plan; creation of the written business plan with implementation strategy and ROI; RFP creation and vendor outsourcing; and project management, if required, for such engagement services as engagement portal technology, assessment, leadership and coaching, innovation, community and diversity, rewards and recognition, analytics and more.
  • An open-source approach. All HMI’s intellectual property is available in the EEA’s online learning and book, and by purchasing ISO Standard 10018 at ISO.org.
  • Access to an unparalleled combination of resources in all areas of engagement and a transparent business model so that organizations can find the solution appropriate for their needs.

HMI’s EE Advisory Practice Approach: From Reactive and Ad Hoc to Proactive and System-Driven

We apply the same systematic approach to achieving results through people that the creators of ISO and the quality movement applied in the 1980s to transform Quality Management. For the first time in 2012, the creators of the widely followed ISO 9001 standards recognized the importance of people and updated those standards to outline the critical importance of applying a systematic approach to all stakeholders that connects all the organization’s engagement efforts to common goals.

What’s unique is the shift from an ad hoc, reactive process, to a pro-active approach that involves all the people who can contribute to success, aligning their passions around the common interests and values of the organization and its culture, while ensuring everyone is equipped to make their most of their skills and abilities. This involves a process approach that aligns traditional leadership, recruitment, coaching, assessment, job design, communication, learning, innovation, community and diversity, rewards/recognition and analytics.

The Process

Using the ISO and Enterprise Engagement framework, HMI’s Senior Advisors:

  1. Use an introductory phone meeting to identify the overall goals and opportunities, high-level challenges and potential return-on-investment based on a one- to three-year time frame.
  2. Conduct an off-site, in-person all day meeting with senior management representing all key areas of the institution to develop a plan of action.
  3. Provide overall project implementation management for the organization.

The plan and implementation process will include the following components:

  • Overview of the economics and experiential benefits to stakeholders of a formal approach to engagement.
  • Identification of return-on-investment potential in one to three years in terms of financial as well as engagement, satisfaction levels and non-financial measures related to referrals, wellness, occupational health and safety, community support, litigation, etc.
  • Identification of the obstacles to achieving those goals and the key behaviors/actions required to achieve them.
  • Benchmarking the organization’s brand, culture and values, and the extent to which they are consistently conveyed to all “interested parties” or stakeholders.
  • Identification of the existing internal or external engagement resources and programs—leadership, communications, assessment, learning, innovation, rewards and recognition, analytics, etc.—that can be leveraged by being better connected and aligned, and how to make that happen.
  • A gap analysis to identify what the organization has in place and what it will need to achieve tangible results, including current data on engagement and general institutional performance.
  • Investigation of the need for, and cost of, outsourcing with recommendations for possible solutions based on the findings.
  • Provision of a formal Engagement Plan document that outlines the investment, measurements, timeline and roles and responsibilities of plan participants.
  • Ongoing oversight of the process in order to to ensure that the plan is achieving goals.
  • Speak at key organizational events to help convey the proper message.

Our Services

HMI’s EE Advisory Practice provides a complete solution including:

  • Determination of goals, objectives and return-on-investment (ROI) analysis.
  • Senior executive meeting facilitation for gap analysis and research.
  • Creation of an Engagement Business plan with implementation plan and return-on-investment.
  • High level project management and ROI analysis.
  • Managed outsourcing of engagement products and services as required.
  • Speaking at events to help convey the vision and plan of the strategy.

The Business Model

As noted above, HMI’s EE Advisory Practice services start with an assessment of the goals and objectives and potential ROI in terms of financial or other organizational challenges or quality of life issues. Based on determining that the potential upside warrants an investment, HMI’s fees are based on the size and nature of the institution and the complexity of the project for:

  • Creating the Engagement plan and ROI.
  • Speaking to key audiences of employees, customers, distribution partners, or communities.
  • Training of tactical managers to improve program design in various areas of engagement.
  • Project management or general oversight as necessary
  • Assistance with outsourcing selection and management.
  • Return-on-investment analytics.
  • A percentage of performance achieved through points-based performance programs or other performance indices when applicable.
  • Management fees if our services are required to select and coordinate multiple vendors, or to train internal hospital management in taking over this process.

The Players

The Enterprise Engagement Advisory Practice is a service of The Healthcare Management Institute of the University of Texas Medical Branch. HMI is responsible for the leadership of the ISO Technical Committee 260 – Human Resource Management that is creating international human resource management standards. HMI is also responsible for the leadership of the ISO Technical Committee 304 – Healthcare Organization Management that is developing international standards addressing the management (non-clinical care delivery) of healthcare organizations around the world.

HMI is also the co-founder of the International Center for Enterprise Engagement (ICEE) (TheICEE.org) that provides the first and only certification in ISO 10018 Quality People Management applicable to ISO 9001 Quality Management and the new ISO 45001 safety standard. The Enterprise Engagement Alliance, also a co-founder of ICEE, is a division of Engagement Enterprises and has licensed its education platform to the not-for-profit TMLU learning organization headed by Allan Schweyer, as well as to ICEE for ISO 10018 training certification.

The Engagement Agency, parent of the EEA, provides consulting, support, outreach and outsourcing management for employers and solution providers seeking to profit from formal engagement processes and ISO 10018 Quality People Management principles.

Led by People Who Know and Care

HMI’s team is led by international leaders in healthcare and hospitality and in the international standards field who have spent decades identifying and advancing best practices in people management. The HMI serves as Secretariat of the ISO 260 Standards Technical Committee, for which Dr. McKinley and Lee Webster are administrators. HMI is a division of UTMB Healthcare Systems, Inc., which is a non-profit corporation with UTMB as its sole member. UTMB is a member of the University of Texas System, one of the nation’s largest university systems.

Dr. Ron McKinley was most recently Vice President of Human Resources for the University of Texas Medical Branch, and before that held senior human resources management positions with leading private and public organizations. Dr. McKinley is Vice President and Chief Standards Officer and oversees all operations.

Ronald B. McKinley

Mr. Lee S. Webster was most recently Director of Employee Relations at UTMB and has held senior human resources positions for multiple organizations. He was at the vanguard of the creation of the first ISO standards on human resource management. He is a widely acknowledged expert in the areas of standards and human resources management, and is HMI’s Director of Standards Development.

Mr. Bruce Bolger is the founder of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance learning and certification program, founded in 2008. It was the first learning and outreach organization to understand the importance of Enterprise Engagement, connecting everyone involved with organizational success, from customers and distribution partners to employees, vendors, owners and communities, and to implementing a process-based approach to aligning key engagement levers. He serves the HMI EE Healthcare Advisory Practice as a Senior Advisory Consultant, facilitator and heads up managed outsourcing.

Bruce Bolger

Mr. Allan Schweyer is the Enterprise Engagement Alliance Curriculum Director. He provides both advisory and training services in support of Enterprise Engagement learning and basic/advanced certification, and is also the Chief Academic Advisor for the Incentive Research Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that funds research in motivation, incentives and recognition. Schweyer heads up learning and certification for the Healthcare EE Advisory Practice, and also serves as a facilitator and senior advisor.

Allan Schweyer

Roles and Responsibilities

  • HMI overseas all projects on a Senior Advisory basis from beginning to end.
  • The Enterprise Engagement Alliance provides training and certification in ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 Quality People Management principles.
  • The Engagement Agency provides support services, outsourcing management and oversight, as well as RFP creation through its extensive network of resources that understand engagement.