Lesley Weidenbener: When change can be excellent

This week’s paper includes our Excellence in Health Care publication, a new take on a program that has since its inception been called Health Care Heroes.

We still see all of our honorees as heroes, of course. But we wanted to give the event and the publication a bit of a refresh—and we thought a new name was in order. The goal was to honor a broader spectrum of people and programs in health care, something we hope to build on in future years.

Before this year, IBJ’s Health Care Heroes awards had the same categories with a tweak here or there. And always (well, there have been a few exceptions), we have honored three people or programs per category, then chosen an overall winner.

That has worked great for years. And in fact, Health Care Heroes has been one of our favorite events because we hear amazing stories from doctors, nurses, volunteers and more and learn about innovations and programs that are making central Indiana a healthier place to live.

So when it came time to propose a change, we were hesitant. We didn’t change Health Care Heroes because it wasn’t working or because we weren’t selling tickets or weren’t getting nominations. Making a change in those situations is easier—you have nothing to lose.

In this case, we believed we could make the program better and tried to do so without too much disruption in what we liked about Health Care Heroes.

Here’s what you’ll find that’s different and the same in Excellence in Health Care:

◗ We kept all the categories that were hallmarks of Health Care Heroes: physician, non-physician, community achievement, innovation and volunteer.

◗ We added categories for pharmacists, mental health advocates, educators and executives.

◗ We created a career achievement award to honor someone who is simply outstanding in the health care field. This year, the award went to a physician, but it can go to anyone who has made a big impact on health care.

◗ In many categories, including physician and nonphysician, we honored just one person. In others, including innovation in health care and community achievement, we picked multiple honorees. In those categories, we did not pick overall winners.

So why these changes in particular?

We loved our existing categories, but we thought we needed to reflect more of the work that happens in health care. In the past, pharmacists, mental health advocates and educators were sometimes nominated in other categories, which made us realize they should have a category of their own. They are all important parts of the health care system.

In addition, as a business journal, we knew we needed to add an award for the executives who are leading health care organizations.

The final addition—career achievement—is an honor we had for a while recognized that we needed. Often, when choosing Health Care Heroes, we struggled with whether the awards should recognize work being done in that moment versus a career of accomplishment. How do you compare the doctor who has delivered thousands of babies with a physician who this year discovered an innovative treatment for a problem?

With the career achievement award, we’ve created a place for those people whose body of work should be recognized. And we found a great first career achievement honoree in Dr. William Goggins, an Indiana University Health surgeon who has performed more than 3,000 kidney transplants—a number believed to be the most in the country. You can read more about Goggins and all our honorees in our Excellence in Health Care publication, edited by Managing Editor Samm Quinn. Enjoy!•

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Weidenbener is editor of IBJ and assistant publisher of IBJ and The Indiana Lawyer.