Hand hygiene in hospitals is a major issue. Although guidelines are well established, compliance by health care workers is concerningly low. Hand-related infections pose a serious threat to all who are admitted to hospital, resulting in at least 7,000 deaths and an economic burden of at least $400 million each year in Australia.
Queensland Health engaged Core Insight to address the issue, identified as being associated with human behaviour, organisational culture and leadership. Addressing the situation required a systematic, multi-faceted and centralised approach. Our in-depth primary research identified the emotions behind the resistances of the health workers. We developed key strategies to address these resistances in a practical, step-by-step engagement process that changed both the behaviour of individuals and the cultural context. The grass-roots campaign we developed - Clean Hands are Life Savers - was anchored by Life Saver Champions who worked with their own teams, creating initiatives to drive the process in the field.
Ongoing audits of all the major hospitals involved in the program over the following 18 months showed levels of compliance up to 70%+ and active engagement. The program continues to deliver outstanding results.
Graduate research study
Stakeholder research
Cultural engagement
Community consultation and customer
behaviour change
Encouraging residents to connect to new infrastructure
In 2006, Sydney Water had built expensive infrastructure in an outlying area of Sydney. Residents, however, were slow to connect to the system.
Core Insight profiled major resident groups to establish the emotional barriers to connecting to the Sydney Water Scheme and assisted Sydney Water in addressing the resistance strategies of the residents by rationally reframing the issue.
Sydney Water now uses Core Insight's approach in their community consultation processes, especially in the communication rollouts of new schemes.
Brand research and strategic direction
Reposition brand around sustainability
Customer insight research & advice
Generation 7 leadership training
Developing sharper leadership for a group operating in a demanding and volatile environment
The Westpac Equity Derivatives leadership team operated in an extremely fast-paced environment, which produced more than its fair degree of stress. It was essential that the team was functional, collaborative and productive, especially as growth was reaching up to 200% per year. There were issues of commitment, respect, openness and ownership.
Core Insight introduced an intervention tool – Generation 7 - to address the issues. Using an accelerated leadership training and coaching process, team members rapidly developed new strategies and tools which empowered them to move forward.
There was between 100%–700% improvement on the seven issues that needed to be addressed. The leadership team became committed to each other, as well as to the wider team.
Hand hygiene in hospitals is a major issue. Although guidelines are well established, compliance by health care workers is concerningly low. Hand-related infections pose a serious threat to all who are admitted to hospital, resulting in at least 7,000 deaths and an economic burden of at least $400 million each year in Australia.
In 2006, Sydney Water had built expensive infrastructure in an outlying area of Sydney. Residents, however, were slow to connect to the system.