I’ve been told that I have an “alphabet soup” listed after my name in my signature line. When this is said to me, I usually shrug my shoulders and ho hum about it. I don’t know why I tend to have this reaction because, in fact, I’m immensely proud of those letters. I worked hard for my degrees and certifications and today, I call myself a lifelong learner.

But it wasn’t always that way. I did well to start my undergrad at the local community college near my home. After obtaining my associate degree and figuring out that nursing was my calling, I transferred to a D-II university and I said to myself, “I’m done stressing out about my grades. I don’t need to get a 4.0; a B average will do just fine.”

And then it all went off the rails.

I failed out of that university. I was barreling toward a career as a restaurant manager, which is a fine profession, but not my passion. I always had good intentions with the beginning each new semester. I had changed my internal dialogue to now say, “I’m going to do better this time around. I’m going to go buy all the textbooks and resources so that I’m set up for success.” Well, here again lies the problem. I would go buy all those overpriced textbooks, resource guides, and whatever else was out there that “guaranteed” to help my academic studies. I would stack them up nicely on my desk and there they would sit. I would barely open them because I failed to plan. Looking back today, it’s like I believed that if I put this book under my pillow and slept on it, I would magically absorb the information found inside. Logical 21-year-old thoughts ...

This early period of my academic/professional life reminds me of today’s healthcare in some regard. We seek out technologies and we build spreadsheets to show us our needed information, but we fail to create a comprehensive plan for what we will do with that data; we fail to plan what we will do to course correct if needed and what we will do to capitalize on early wins and build momentum. We don’t appropriately plan for the potential project barriers; we don’t adequately map out all the necessary subject matter experts and key stakeholders. We go buy the textbooks, but we fail to plan our comprehensive, strategic approach to success.

Thankfully I was able to right the ship when in 2008, I found out that I was about to be a father for the first time. At that point, my academic progress and focus was no longer just about me or my goals; it was much bigger than that. Failure was no longer an option, and I planned my studies much more purposefully. Again, comparing this to our current healthcare environment, COVID has shown us that process improvement isn’t just about us and our goals; it’s much bigger than that. Patient throughput is at the forefront of nearly every significant challenge we’re facing as an industry today. We need efficiencies; we need data; we need improvement; we need a plan. The “alphabet soup” that follows my name has given me degrees, certifications, and an education, but most importantly, it has given me a wealth of life lessons. When I apply everything that I’ve learned to healthcare today, I know the time is now to build our comprehensive, individualized strategies because if we

fail to plan, plan to fail.