Transcript

Operational Blindness: What’s Costing Hospitals Millions

From YouTube Channel UCNFpdzMKNcVkP3kn1x1lXMw · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 55 min · 9,858 words · 79 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Operational Blindness: What’s Costing Hospitals Millions", an episode of YouTube Channel UCNFpdzMKNcVkP3kn1x1lXMw published February 12, 2026 (55 min, about 9,858 words). It mentions 7 people, works and ideas, including Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs, Operational Blindness, NASCAR, Sharon Green, RNBC conference.

What this episode is about

Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs discusses the concept of operational blindness in hospitals during a keynote speech at the RNBC conference, emphasizing how overlooked inefficiencies can cost healthcare institutions millions and potentially impact patient care. He shares his motivations for addressing these critical issues in the healthcare industry, highlighting the real-life implications of effective operational strategies.

Key takeaways

  • Questioning traditions can reveal hidden truths; sometimes, 'how we've always done it' is just a legacy of limitations.
  • Anxiety meets purpose when your message impacts lives—no pressure, just the weight of responsibility for keeping people healthy!
  • Operational blindness isn't just in healthcare; it lurks in any industry with stubborn adherence to 'the way things are.'
  • The narrative of small-skillet cooking shows how generational myths can stifle innovation if no one dares to ask why.
  • Travel time varies not just by route but by perspective—context matters in understanding our journey, whether literal or metaphorical.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs, Operational Blindness, RNBC conference
  2. – 10:00: NASCAR
  3. – 15:00: NASCAR
  4. – 25:00: Genesis
  5. – 30:00: Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs
  6. – 40:00: Sharon Green
  7. – 45:00: Operational Blindness
  8. – 54:48: Operational Blindness

Notable quotes from "Operational Blindness: What’s Costing Hospitals Millions"

  • Hey, this is Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs, host of Bread to Lead, and this episode is something different. I think it'll be extremely special. This is me speaking at RNBC conference, their business.
    about Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs · at
  • I've spoken on, you can hear the shakiness in my voice a little bit. I've spoken on some of the largest stages, tens and thousands of people, TEDex, done all the works. But when I talk to you healthcare folk, it just gets me all.
    about TEDex · at
  • Everyone has to actually care about the roles that you play and the positions that we have because each position matters. Now, there are some positions this quite naturally. They get paid more.
    about NASCAR · at
  • So, the first thing we did, we went and hired one of the best sterile processing vets on this side of heaven. Her name is Sharon Green.
    about Sharon Green · at
  • Cost, no hidden shipping fee or anything like that. I just want people to understand operational blindness is when healthcare leaders are accountable for outcomes they cannot…
    about Operational Blindness · at
  • Continue to keep holding them accountable into the line. That is training. One of my favorite books, it says, If you train up a child in the way that they should go, when they leave, they'll never depart from you.
    about Genesis · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs — Person · Host / Main speaker · 2 mentions · first at
    He introduces himself as the host of the Bread to Lead podcast and delivers the keynote talk on operational blindness at the RNBC business summit.
  • Sharon Green — Person · Referenced expert hire (SPD subject-matter leader) · 1 mention · first at
    Jacobs cites her as a key sterile processing veteran he hired to help rebuild an SPD operating system; used to establish credibility and depth of expertise behind his approach.

Books & papers

  • Operational Blindness — Book · Primary recommendation · 6 mentions · first at
    The book is central to the discussion, providing insights into healthcare leadership challenges and solutions.
  • Genesis — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned to draw parallels between biblical creation and organizational system building.

Concepts & topics

  • NASCAR — Concept · Key argument · 4 mentions · first at
    Used as an analogy to explain the importance of teamwork and system efficiency in healthcare operations.

Places & events

  • RNBC conference — Event · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    The context in which the speaker is delivering his keynote, setting the stage for the discussion.
    Host of Bread to Lead, and this episode is something different. I think it'll be extremely special. This is me speaking at RNBC conference, their business summit on operational…
  • TEDex — Event · Referenced expert · 2 mentions
    Mentioned as part of the speaker's credentials and experience in public speaking.

Full transcript with timestamps

Hey, this is Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs, host of Bread to Lead, and this episode is something different. I think it'll be extremely special. This is me speaking at RNBC conference, their business summit on operational blindness. This is a keynote edition of the Bread to Lead podcast. If you like more episodes like this, I would love to be able to give you all just a earshot of what goes on when I speak on the stage. I hope you enjoy it and let us know if you want more of this. Thanks. I take the

Since the age of 12, I've been about my father's business. At the age of 30, he sent me to his

Can y'all hear me? Now, I'mma sit down for a second because kind of get anxiety when I start to speak. I've spoken on, you can hear the shakiness in my voice a little bit. I've spoken on some of the largest stages, tens and thousands of people, TEDex, done all the works. But when I talk to you healthcare folk, it just gets me all y'all get me anxious. These judgy eyes. What's this next smart guy got to say? And the truth is, y'all made me go talk to my counselor. I went and told them y'all and asked my counselor, I said, "Why with this group of people do I get so anxious?" They're the nicest people I ever met. Some of the most thoughtful leaders of any industry that I've participated in. Why?

And my counselor said, "After a decade of being a counselor, I think you finally found an industry that matters to you." So when you speak, you know that motivation or a concept or a thought, theory, a structure, a system, a programmatic way of doing something, somebody can take it, go implement it in their hospital, and it can ultimately save a life or harm one. It's not the same as talking to the entrepreneur that owns a tissue or toilet tissue business and get them amped up. Go clean butts. If they make a mistake, you just have some stains in your underwear. That's it.

But it's nothing that truly truly truly can affect the life of a human being. Before coming into healthcare, my team, as you guys can see, I'm not going to act like he doesn't exist. This is my head of marketing, Ignasio. And we're known, my little rag tag group. We're known as ambulance chasers, tornado chasers, if you will. We like to chase the most difficult problems and solve. You can call it because I'm the why kid. I got a bunch of whoopers not for being bad just because I asked why all the time. And what I came to find out, no matter what organization, no matter what industry we participated in, why just irritates people because the truth is we don't understand why. So it's just easier to not address the problem at hand.

That's what happens. Give you a story. I think my anxiety is gone now. I was at my mother's house and she cooks mean fried chicken. I'm talking about the type of chicken that'll make you want to slap your mama. Unfortunately, it's my mom cooking it. And she cooks this fried chicken in a cast iron skillet. Small. She she was chefing away. And one day I said, "Ma, it's a thousand of us in this house. Why are you cooking all of this chicken in a small cast iron skillet? Take me forever to do the same thing that you can do with a bigger cast iron at least." She said, "Baby, because this is just it it it she starts to bake up this excuse because when it's smaller, you know, it it heats up faster and and it keeps it hot and that's how I get it crispy." And your grandma and great grandma, they all did the same thing. And I said, "Huh, told you I was the Y kid." So, I I could cook a little bit, too. I went home and I got me a

cast iron skillet, but a bigger one. Cuz I just wanted to test the theory. Is mama right or just one of them folk glory folktales that you just say because you don't know the answer to my question. Lo and behold, not only did I cook more chicken, it was golden and crispy just like mama and grandma made it. So, I went back to my mom and I said, "Well, mom, I thought you said that the smaller cast iron skillet heats up more and it's the only way that you can keep the brown even and all those things." She said, "You know, I just never thought to get a bigger skillet."

So, I go to my grandma. Hey, G lady. I'm her favorite in the KJ. She said, "Hey, baby." I said, "Why? Why do y'all use small cast iron skillets? Her response was different. She said, "Well, it's because it cooks down to the meat faster." I said, "Well, that's strange. Mama says something different." Well, where did y'all get it from? My mama. So, it's my great granny. Well, my great grandma has passed, but my aunt Barbara is still around. Her best friend, her sister. And I said, "Um Barbara why did y'all use small cast iron skillet?" She said, "Baby, that's all we can afford."

So imagine three generations having this concept that this is how you cook something only to find out when you keep asking why, they just use the skillet that they could afford and kept it. And so what it had me thinking is that organizations all around the country have these isms, these myths of how things have always been because they've been passed down from generation to generation and nobody has taken the time to ask. What I'm going to say? Oh, y'all read my notes today. This feel like church. Anybody from Austin? Anyone?

Anyone from Austin here? Anyone from Dallas? From Dallas here? You from Dallas? Yeah. You look like you from Dallas, brother. Got a little drip tea. I see the socks. Fun su. How long does it take to get from here in Dallas to Houston to Austin? From Austin to Dallas. Three and a half. Eight.

Three and a half hours. Say it like you're proud. Three and a half. Did y'all hear what he said? What did he say?

Three and a half hours. He said it with confidence. No question. If I take that same question, I ask somebody that's never driven a car, but only walked, never been on a bus, never been on a plane, never been on a scooter, only walked. How long does it take to get from here in Dallas to Austin? They'll say 3 to four weeks walking. The question is, who's right? They're both right. The only difference is the vehicle. The next question I ask someone, I say, 'Hey, that's driven a car all their life, never a plane, never a bus, a car, how long does it take to get there? He said the thing, three and a half hours.

If I go to a middle class American community that they fly, they don't really travel by bus or by car, by walking or bike, how long does it take to get from here in Dallas to Austin? They'll say about an hour and a half, give or take, getting through the terminal to get on a plane to get to Austin. The question is who's right? They're all right. The only difference is the what vehicle. Now, if I take that same question to the ultra wheel that have only flown jet, how long does it take to get from here in Dallas to Austin? What do you think they're going to say? 30 minutes on a hopper. They always like to make it sound like real different. It's just a little small plane. It's really not really cool, especially when you go into states that got a lot of turbulence. You on the plane, think you're going to die. You just wishing that it was a bigger plane.

But imagine this concept. Same destination, same place, but the only difference is how fast you get there in the most efficient way possible. And with every way that you get there, it takes more time, more resources, more finances, more money. But the experience gets better when you start to question sacred cows that we've addressed this entire time. And so for just a moment, I want us just today to just act like you're my friend. I'm not going to sell you anything. You won't see a thing that's going to say just for $2.99, change your life. You hear that enough?

Today is about talking about belief in changing concepts that you've hold held so dear. That's actually destroying your organization is honestly destroying your own peace. You came into healthcare to make a difference. And sometimes when I look in some of you all's eyes all over the country, seems like you feel like you're fighting, but that spirit of optimism and joy is just dying. And I get it. So I just want to challenge us to think something different. So I want to ask you something. Any NASCAR people here? All right, sister. I got one. So in NASCAR, we have the driver. They run the race. All eyes are on the driver. We know the drivers.

They have the pit crew, the pit lane, the garage team, the holler. See the drivers, the star pit crew on race day, those the ones that are when you see them in slow motion, it looks like butter. They're fixing the car in less than 11 seconds and that car is hitting the road. It's a beautiful sight. Then you have your pit lane. That's the track where the action happens. You have your garage behind the scenes. They prepare the car and inspect every component. Without them, it seems like the driver doesn't race and the hauler delivers the race ready car to the pit lane on time every time. All of these positions are important. Wouldn't you agree? You can't have an amazing pit crew with a terrible driver. Doesn't work, right? You can't have an amazing driver with a terrible pit crew. It doesn't work. And you can't have an amazing driver with an amazing pit crew with a terrible garage.

Does that work? No. And then your transporter, your hauler, they have to care about the car, too. Imagine if everything is perfect, but every time they haul the car, they mess up the driver's car. So, it's crazy what it takes to have a flawless organization. Everyone has to actually care about the roles that you play and the positions that we have because each position matters. Now, there are some positions this quite naturally. They get paid more because they're taking the most risk, but it doesn't mean they're more important. So, when I look at the surgical service line, and I'm so proud about this because when I came into the industry, the very first thing I did didn't sell, me and Donnie, our co my co-partner, my CEO there, she's been with the company for 20 years, started as a volunteer and worked her way up. Now, she's a CEO after 20 years later. and her and the founder of the company found our rag tag

group and had to convince us to come over here to healthcare and the question I asked them I said it's not about money because we're fine can we make an impact is there true change that can be made or are people stuck in their ways and you can't create anything different she said no transformation is needed hospitals are asked to actually operate a profitable hospital and nobody's actually been trained on how to run a profitable business so there's change that's needed so I said okay we went all over the country for the first year and you'll in a little bit. And we 101 surveyed more than 180 people, leaders, period leaders, seuite executives, uh, SPD leaders, you name it, we've done it.

Oneonone, not a survey, not an email blast, not a text message, onetoone, personto person, face to face because it matters. What we found out, I'll share with that later with you. But here we have the surgical service line is the surgeon. They run the case, all eyes on them, but they can only run one case at a time. Your OT, that's your pit crew. Get in there and just like the pit crew. The track, that's the O. That's where everyone gets to shine. You get your your lights on. Still processing is behind the scenes.

That's your garage. The black box everyone forgets about but complains about when the rubber hits the mo road. And then your case car, that's the delivery transport team. The garage isn't support. The garage is part of the operation, not the evil step job. It's a part of the is a part of the group. And the driver knows that if the car isn't ready, they lose. The driver respects the mechanics because winning depends on them. The crew chief coordinates garages, the garage and pit crew as one integrated team. The team owner invest in the garage because they understand the ROI. Everyone's on the same team.

Everyone shares the same goal. Everyone contributes. Visible and valuable. Contribution is visible and valuable. But imagine if NASCAR operated like most hospitals. Just imagine. Just imagine all the things that we could be. Who Who knew Barney was my favorite singer? Imagine all the places we can go and see. Imagination's fun for you and me. I just want us to imagine the driver shows up on race day and expects the car to be ready, but never talk to the mechanic or the pit crew. It just shows up like, "Hey, we're racing today. Let's go."

What car is going to be ready? If you do get a car, it's going to be a shabby car. The mechanic finds out which car the driver wants to race 30 minutes BEFORE THE GREEN FLAG. When the car breaks down mid race, the driver blames the garage, but the garage isn't on the radio. It's not a part of your huddle. We'll just send information down and them people downstairs, they figure it out cuz we're busy up here. The team owner cuts the garage budget because they don't generate revenue. The driver does. So the team owner says, "Man, what matters is the pit crew and the driver.

So, we're going to cut this garage, slice it up in pieces, and say, "Hey, I'm going to get what I need because we just need to make sure I have the best driver, the best pit crew anybody can be a mechanic with this crew." But that's not necessarily true. And after a loss, the debrief, everyone except is a part of except for the mechanics. This team will never win. And every minute your garage cost your driver is a minute of revenue that's gone forever, just like in surgeries. I'm not going to bore you with these statistics because I think you all already know it. How much it costs to run a hospital.

In case you didn't know, a lot of hospital systems, more than 78% of the revenue comes from surgeries. Coming from private sector, one of the things that we value most was not just the sales team, but also customer support and service delivery team. They're just as important as the people that sell. Why? Because you can sell the moon. promise the world, but if you have no one to help you deliver it, the result of that is catastrophic in healthcare. Selling tissue, you just just jump in the shower. But anything else is different. Every minute, every cancellation, every delay actually matters. So we talk about the healthc care severs, the connection is completely crazy. And it's kind of crazy because what we did with the hospital system that we were supporting was We convinced the seauite of a hospital system to just give us two years with their SPD and we talked to the uh VP of perop the AC and OO of the hospital

system and said listen I'm not we're not here to tell you or what to do I just want to fix the relationship they say yes what happened in 18 months we took a hospital that's historically known to be terrible in the Midwest The SPD was the number one reason for causes of delay. Now they're last. Sterile processing department went from overbudget 1.5 to underbudget 1.5. We took them from having 36 FTEEs to 24 FTEEs and they operate in hum. And now in that same city, that SPD department, most SPD folk work two jobs, multiple hospitals. They don't get paid enough.

So what did we do? We shrunk the team, made them more efficient, and paid them what they were worth. the highest paid SPD in the city. Hey, hey, they don't have to work one job. They're happy. They have a respect from the O. We bridged that relationship. And guess what's most important? The surgeons are happy because they can increase their volume because what we told the seauite, we said, "Listen, if the SPD is not involved in revenue creation conversations, there's no way that we can actually help you. There's no way."

So, we did it and we changed it. And after that, now we talked to the president CEO like we're best friends and buddies. The first thing I told him, I said, "Brother, I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to act like I'm your friend, but I do want you to go home and know that when you leave your hospital, that it's all in the right hands." I know we get tired of those vendors that act like they're your friends. They ask you about your family and hey buddy. Hey Betty, just love you. Then you sell them, you sign, and you don't hear from them until they want to upsell. Yeah, that's not what we want.

So before we talk about what it cost you a hospital, you wake up at 2 a.m. not because something's wrong, but because you don't because you don't know something. You don't wake up at 2 a.m. Not because something went wrong, because you don't know something went wrong. You're waiting on the call. Uh, let me go back. You're waiting on the call, the email, the text, because you know something is going to go wrong. Imagine having anxiety going to work every day. You can imagine it because a lot of us live it. And then the doubt starts to creep in. I've been doing this 20 years. I should have known this. Why do I feel like I'm always one step behind? You start to wonder if you're actually good at this or if you've just been lucky. I'm going to give you a little something, a little fun small fact I found. 1969, that's when the O actually was standardized. 1969, that's when regulation actually happened. Do

you know when regulation, the idea of regulation happened with SPD? Anyone? 2006 ST79 came about in 2006 we have some SPD leaders that are managing running SPD that have been a part of a world where they learned the majority of their nuances their trade in an unregulated environment. Do you know when Joint Commission made it their priority to say every time we visit a hospital we're going to SPD? Anyone know the year?

2010. You're close. 2013. What year is it? What is it? How many years is that? 13 years. That SPD has been a part of the conversation. 13. And we wonder why there's mayhem. So before you create a change, we have to assess something. And here's the craziest thing. You say, "Man, I've been here 20 years. I should know this." How can you know something when it never was the priority? You're never part of the conversations. You just kind of threw it under the bus. O is upset at SPD. SPD is mad because they just need to be mad because you mad. You know how we get mad. I'm mad because you mad because we mad together. But what happens is when you realize your counterparts that you need and depend on every day, haven't had the same amount of time or regulatory standards that you've had in the development of training, you have a little bit more empathy and wanting to make something work with them. So when I

brought this to the seauite's attention, it's funny what research and facts do. It kind of it kind of just brings things to light. Then we walked around sea suite said come downstairs. Now the president comes to SPD every single day and can I tell you something? Metrics and numbers do lie. For an example, if you hire somebody that's been at SPD 30 years, they say, "Man, I I I I I took all the travelers out and we're now staffed internally." It sounds good on paper. You cut the traveler's cost. Now it's all local on paper, localized on paper, but your skill mix is wrong. You have 10% of your team that what we call a blue belt, can operate in multiple zones, but 90% are under three years.

Yeah, it looks good that we cut the cost, but the organization is absolutely going to struggle because the skill mix is off. Well, when you think about it, you roll it back. It sounds simple, but when there's high pressures to cut cost and not observe the system first, these are the things that we do. We do patchwork. We get this tech, we get this system, we get that product, we go to this conference, we take that process, and we don't actually think about reconstructing the entire system because we've never been prone or pushed to. And we're wondering why this hyena and lion relationship is always conflicting. And like I tell anybody, you can get new technology all you want. There's a lot of great vendors here, but you can't put new wood on the termite infested for cuz a new ter the termites are going to eat the what? The new wood. You can't slap lipstick on a pig and say it's a sheep.

It's still oinks. But when we look at it, we say, "Man, they got to catch up. Let's just give him a budget. disapprove them. SPD, what do you need? They don't know what they need. So then you get them what they need and it doesn't work. Now you say, "I'm never going to get you what you need." And it gets worse. Then you get an agency in that promises they're going to change it, but they're just a bunch of patchwork people doing the same thing HRs do. Do author call all around the country, charge your hospital arm and leg to have people that are underperforming.

This is the truth. Hey, brother. Hey, what's your name? Chad. Hey, Chad. How are you?

Pretty good. So these are the things that we deal with on a daily basis. So I like to do things very simple. I like to take things biblical really quick. There's a favorite book I got is Genesis. You may know about this book or not. But in Genesis, the creator of this world, being politically correct, Donnie, am I doing good? Yes. This creator of this world, in this book of Genesis, the first thing this creator did, it did not say, "Let there be light first." That's what everyone talks about. You know what he did? He hovered the waters. You know what waters mean in Hebrew? Mayhem.

Chaos. He didn't bring light first. He split the chaos first and darkness. He assessed the problem before patching it. Before creating a world in the system, he assessed what was going on. So I look at an organization, I like to say, "Hey, we need an assessment." And the organization says, "Hey, no, we just need staff." And I say, "Hey, we don't want to work with you." and they say, "Hey, wait, wait. You don't want to work with us? I'm telling you, we need 10 texts. I'm telling you, there's a lot of other companies to go to cuz I don't want to deal with this hatchy heady getchy stuff. Came to healthcare to make a change and I want to work with the leaders that truly want to make changes.

And if you knew what the problem was, why is there a problem in the first place?" So, he hovered the waters. Then he split chaos, the waters that could not be controlled from the waters that could operate in a system. Then he said, "Let there be light." And before humans were even brought to this world, he built systems. Did y'all know that? Systems that didn't have to need a human to run them. They just run on their own because this creator wanted to create a world where we didn't have to depend on how we would feed ourselves because the system, the ecosystem actually could produce itself. So that we can realize the system will move with or without persons. But we live in a society not just in healthcare but all over the world because we need notoriety and we need acceptance and we need the vision of everyone to see us. So we love to award heroism when it's all on one person and then we

award that person then the other person coming up after you says I need to be a hero. But I don't know about you all. I like to be a hero parent. I don't want to be a hero at work. I don't mind stretching the earth for my child, my baby, my boot, and my two sons. But at work, I shouldn't have to do that. I want to operate in this system. But we've been seeing this for 20 years. And now you carry this weight alone. You can't admit it to the board. You can't admit it to your peers. You can't admit it to your team. So you carry it alone. And the more seen you get, the more isolated the weight feels because if you do say that you have a problem as a VP, you think that that means that hey, that means that I'm not fit for the job. So we patch it, we hide it, we patch it, we hide it, we patch it, we hide it, we patch it, we hide it.

And before you know, we have a lot of an organization full of patchwork, but no system work. And the best way to build something is structure. So we talk about systems. Everyone has intelligence and everyone has technology and all all of a sudden all of these 30-year-old companies now the same systems and programs are now intelligent all of a sudden. New buzz word, new day is fine. But as an organization, you have to ask yourself if when there is no technology, how can we operate intelligently? When there is no technology or systems or structure, how can we move in a way that allows for us to move according to ensuring that patients, regardless of what type of surgery, can get back home to their babies the same way that you want to. That's what matters. And we don't want you to carry this along because what happens is here's the cost that no one measures. Strain at home.

You're present but you're not present. Your spouse sees it. Your kids feel it. You're at the dinner table but you're still at the hospital. You're there but you're not there. The loss of joy. You got into healthc care to make a difference. Now you spend your days managing the aftermath of things that you never saw coming. You hired a rockstar and you thought that it would change and that rockstar is not a rock star, but you can't fire them. So, you just have to now create all these difficult ways to get them to quit, but they won't quit.

We talk about the health costs, blood pressure, sleep, weight, the body keep score. You know, the stress is taking years off of your life. The quiet fear. How long until this catches up to me? How long until there's a problem I can't recover from? And it's not your fault. That's what I want to tell you. It's not. The architecture of healthcare operations was never designed to give you the visibility that you need to lead at this level of complexity. It's not your fault. We just never had a system. And a system is just simply a series of programs that work succinctly together in order to produce an efficient outcome.

And I'm sorry, the purpose of the lean belt system doesn't teach you how to restructure an organization from scratch. It teaches you how to make the current structure, assuming it is the most efficient structure, efficient. So this is why you can have all the black belt lean on your team and still have mayhem because lean was created in a world Toyota that already had a flawless system and they just were making tweaks along the way. So what happens is you learn lean you make it efficient and you make your workarounds efficient but you don't deal with the symptom at at hand.

O is underdeveloped or the SPD is underdeveloped. We have s techs or liaison that have never been in SPD. The purpose of a liaison from SPD to O is to have somebody that understands both worlds. And when you look at a pit crew, the most important person on the pit crew is the mechanic that worked the garage and also is great at working with the pit crew. That's a person that can liazison in between, communicate in between, talk in between. This is a systematic structure that are needed. So we did a study. As you can tell, I am a doctor, but I'm not a doctor. If you are sick, if you call me, you may end up dead. My doctor is at in business administration. So, I like to tell people when your organization is sick, that's when you call me. I'm the person that makes your organization feel better. I'm not the person that you come to for anything else. But if you want true change, and you're not alone. We

actually measured it. Remember I told you that we went and did a study with 185 leaders all over the country some of the larger hospital systems in the country we support and even those leaders it was absolutely scary how many leaders would I talk to in confidence told me the real truth that they feel like they couldn't tell their peers their upline or their leaders so we come with these fronts with these masks on to conferences and talking to your peers and imagine being in a space where you can't even be yourself and be honest about how much of a mess things are and how much of lack of a structure people have. So, we did a study. Did you know that 99.5% of the people that we did a study with scored at risk or operationally blind? 99.

99%. And did you know these same 99% actually had tracking systems? If tracking systems how how they currently stand actually worked even in the hospitals that have all the modules, why are we still having the same issues that we had before the tracking system? It's not a tracking of instruments. If I lose my key at home and I keep losing my key, I'm not going to put a a tracker on my key fob. I'm going to find a place and make it a routine and a behavior split in the same place every time. 50.8% lack early warning capability. Did you know that 50.8% feel like they can't see the problems that are coming and it just hits them like a like a ton of bricks every single time? Now imagine if you're a VP and every department feels that way. just hide to your room and just get through the day and say there will always be a problem. 49.2% say solutions fail to fix persistent problems. Bring in a consultant, it

works. They leave, it breaks. You bring back in the consultant, it works. They leave, it breaks. And we keep this cycle up. We keep the cycle up because the solution was never actually solved. And we've had a lot of hospitals because what most people didn't know with SIPS when we do staff or we have staffed before, we actually built those leaders from scratch. Those technicians that we that we placed, a lot of them we trained from scratch and got them certified. So they were a little different than when we placed them. The hospital of course says, "Hey, we want to cut cost. So we want the staff. We want the team." You get the team, you remove the system. Two years later, they call us back. Same team. I need an RFP. Cool. We do an RFP.

They give our same team to another company. And that company, same team. Same team, new company overseeing it in the dumps. They bring us back. Same team. Our system, it works. Why? Because how we build an organization is all programmatic. When I'm hiring somebody from scratch, what is your program to take them from entry level to top performer in your organization? How do we decide the quality of a technician or nurse or surgeon? Is it just based on tenure? Man, the 10 years, man, I've I've seen it all. 10 years of interviews, you're a great interviewer.

But when I ask your organizations that you've come from, what has happened? You ran out of there. when problems arise because you know there's a shortage all over the world and what I've learned about this consulting space is that when people underperform at their hospital they go work for a consulting company let it die down for a year or two pop back on the local hospital this is just the structure this is why fundamentally what we've done in organization is it doesn't matter what your tenure is everyone gets assessed the same and giving some type of belt we have a color-coded belt system and based on how we assess you. I don't care if you're a 20-year vet. How you're assessed and you have to keep that belt status like karate.

This is how we're able to progress throughout the organization. Why? Because building a system is a programmatic way. Especially when humans are the main focus of the care or the delivery of the service. We don't assume what people know. And if you're offended that I test you because you've been in 10 years, you don't fit. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, sir. So, you know what we did? I got it, brother. I know what you're thinking. We went to the healthcare system, the same one that I told you that we saved all this stuff.

They wanted us to get a a m a person that was a manager of 10 years. I said, "No, we're not going to do it." They said, "No, we want somebody of 20 years." I said, "Hey, see, sweet. Remember, you told me you let us figure this out cuz it's already in shambles. Let us figure it out." We went and found a supervisor that's never been a manager before, but they were 1,000% committed to the system and development. You know what happened? They love her. They love her so much. They said, "Can we keep her?" And she said, "Oh, no, he can't keep me because I don't have a system."

Because the hospital thought, "Oh, it's the manager." But no, it's how we develop our leaders in our system. And when Boston Children saw this, I said, "Hey, man. Come on. Come on, buddy. Let's come over here. Let's do it." So, we say here, uh, 50% of operations leaders are operating blind. the highest, this is the highest of any road that we assess that operations leaders said, "We have no clue what is going on anywhere." And we depend on reporting. Give me the dashboard. Give me the report. Give me the information. And it's crazy what happens when you sit with people oneonone. You actually talk with them.

They understand that you truly care about what's going on with them. You're not trying to sell them. It's crazy the type of truth that comes out. It's crazy what type of truth that comes out. They say, "Doc, I'm gonna be honest with you. I know I go around and I say how well we're doing percentage-wise, but it it's bad. And so I I I give the front. This what one of them told me. I give the front that everything's great. The statistics are great. And I said, "Well, how are you measuring greatness with statistics?" "Well, I just measure where we where we come from." I said, "Well, where are you going?" "Well, we just want to keep incrementally getting better." I said, "Well, how do you know your organization's better? Yes, you're trending up and things are coming down, but at the end of the day, what is your metric that you're judging your organization against? He said, "Dr.

Jake, I I never even thought about that. I just was proud to say that we've gotten better." And I said, "There's nothing wrong with you getting better." Well, what are you getting better, too? In comparison to whom? Based on what knowledge? We saw that these stats are scary, you all. 40.7% said they're operating fully operationally blind. metrics don't match reality. When they look at the dashboard, raise your hand if you looked at a dashboard and you said, "But this doesn't feel like reality that I see." Especially with the vendors. I'm just be honest. We're vendors, so I can be I can talk about we give a dashboard. Why? We want to stay.

And you're looking at the dash like, "Dude, I just don't see it. I just don't see it. I don't see it." Why? Because the metrics aren't matching. Why? Because numbers do lie. It just depends on how you want to tell the story. So the great old adjective that numbers don't lie. Put the facts the facts out there and they'll do that. Then I can ask them based on what you say, man. We cut down overtime. Well, let me see. If your organizational structure had not changed, you cut down overtime, but you increased in travelers.

You're just moving the cheese. It doesn't fundamentally work. So, as an operations company, we look at the true structure of an organization. forget all the fluff and all the names and certifications and all of this. So, what we did when we first got on board as we were building this. I'm a little bit I'm a little bit of a radical transformationist, but I'm not an idiot. So, the first thing we did, we went and hired one of the best sterile processing vets on this side of heaven. Her name is Sharon Green. She's to be the president of Isham, HSPA. She is a rock star and she's a traditional SPD specialist. 40 years in the game. She's seen every evolution of sterile processing. She's on international boards. It's a rock star.

Then I went and we hired an operations specialist that did sterile processing but left to build his own business and came back. Do y'all know why I hired that person? Because that person had to learn how to build something from scratch. See, a lot of times when you grow up in a system and you've been programmed to be an operator, you don't know how to actually rebuild the structure or the program. You just kind of like make patchwork. You don't know how to reverse engineer and look at all the fails and rebuild that structure from scratch. You just operate. So when I'm operating as an operator, I get promoted to director.

Sometimes because of proximity, sometimes because they just like you or because you were a great clinician or a technician. You were really great at what you did, but fundamentally being great at the job does not make you great as an operational leader. And we do that all the time, man. This person is a great tech. I want to make you a manager. It's not how it works. So when we looked at the structure, I said, "Okay, I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you and my team of rag tag crew, the Y kids, and we're going to deconstruct every theory, myth, methodology structure understanding any of that. We're going to reconstruct that and we're going to actually build a system that's amazing. We had a lot of fighting nights.

Some wanted to quit, including myself. Me calling Dunny saying this ain't worth it. But every day coming back to the table, looking at what has historically worked for our company, looking at what hasn't worked when vendors come to organizations and what has worked, rebuilding that structure, and then turning around hospital systems moving forward. But when we look at this, this is why I say the metrics don't really match because when we went into a hospital system, they had four vendors supporting one hospital. Yes, they were going through a third party, but anytime you have four staffing companies supporting your one company, each staffing company wants more staff. So, they quite naturally do what? They sabotage each other because in their payroll, you get commission for upselling inside the organization. So, now you say, "Man, we got a third party.

They're doing all the work because we don't want to do it anymore." But then you're not asking the third party, how are they getting their staff? They just send emails to staffing companies to fill these gaps. So, you're being filtered in from 10 different agencies and you're wondering why because 10 different agencies have 10 different philosophies and 10 different methodologies and 10 different reasons why that they there. And you're wondering why you have help, but it feels like you have none. And now you can't go back to leadership and say you need more help because they finally gave you what you asked for. Now you're stuck again. And and 47.6% 6% said we can't explain the root causes to exec so we just kind of just one of them literally said Dr. Jake, we just thug it out. And I said, "Absolutely. It's crazy." So, this is what we call operational blindness. I wrote a book entitled Operational Blindness.

Why healthcare leaders can't see what's costing them millions and how to finally fix it. Every one of you is going to get a free book, free copy. We'll send it to each and every one of you. I'm daring you to think about the way that we think. I'm challenging leaders to change the way you think. When I write books historic, I've been doing it 10 years. 10 books, seven sectors, same result change. You know, the reason I write books, not to make money, to invoke thought. Put this in your hand so that you can actually see it, understand, and maybe challenge some things that you're thinking about. So, this guy right here that's making it really weird, he has a camera that's following me. He has at the booth, he's going to find, he has a QR code you can sign up for. We're going to send you a free book, free copy, no cost, no hidden shipping fee or anything like that. I just want people to understand operational blindness is when

healthcare leaders are accountable for outcomes they cannot see, cannot govern or cannot influence in real time despite having data, despite having dashboards, despite having technology. It's not incompetence. It's not ignorance. It's not inevitability. The problem is systematic. Leaders have no knowledge or expertise and it can be eliminated with the right architecture. So symptoms you may realize this is how you know if you have are dealing with operational blindness. Reactive decision-m you're responding to problems after they've escalated rather than preventing them.

Don't raise your hand. Just do like this with Josh. Firefighting culture. This is just how it always been. You don't understand our every health. You don't understand how our hospital system is. Ours is different. I'm like that's fine. culture different people different that's fine but every hospital can't tell me the same thing morale injury when you can't deliver outcomes you know are possible it creates professional dis dist distress problems discovered too late issues surface we were one of our health systems and one of the people reported we have no mightest findings we said well that's a little scary that means y'all aren't reporting cuz I know that we've caught like 10 that should have been put on fighters but it wasn't. So if I look at the data as an executive and everything is moving fast. I say there are no findings. We are a perfect organization. It's only because they just covered it up because

if they actually tell you that they're underperforming, they're scared to lose their job because they know you're not going to give them the system or you're not going to defend them for the resource they need to rebuild the structure so that they can be able to help. So they just say, "Hey, hey, uh, just if something come up, then let me know. I'mma fix it. Don't report it, though." Kind of like my culture growing up. They say, "Don't snitch." My daddy said, "If you didn't do it, call the police immediately." It's very important here. Leadership fatigue. Constant firefighting depletes cognitive resources. You can't even think about being innovative because you're so busy putting out fires where you are. Leadership fatigue and executive burnout. High accountability, low visibility creates unstable environments. And it's kind of crazy.

It's like this leadership paradox. We have more data than ever and less clarity. We have just so much information. When you get your data, just this data board you dashboard you and going to dash it up. When you look at this thing, you're going to be able to see everything that's happening. But seeing everything that's happening doesn't help me. Like I I you know I I know we're sick. Like can you fix that? So when you look at it's actually proven. The more information you have without the tools in your tool belt to actually improve it, the more it bottles you up that you can actually solve it. Now you get more anxiety because you have the information but you don't have the skill set, the tools or the resources or the system that can actually bring about change. And this reminds me of IBM. Healthcare today is where IBM was in the '90s. Everybody remember IBM? Everybody remember IBM was about to go bankrupt and everyone was

scared. Everyone was terrified because this is America's company. If IBM dies, America dies. So they brought in a guy named Lou Girtzner. Never been in tech in his life. He's a Y kid like me. We went to the same school, the school of why. And he came in asking simple questions. Why? And what he realized was every or every department in the company was its own little business. When I look at healthcare, everything is siloed. Everything's apart. Everything's in pieces. SPD has its own system and technology that doesn't communicate with anything upstairs.

O has their own system and their own world and their own governance and their own leadership that doesn't talk with SPD. And if you do talk to SPD, you know, you kind of talk to SPD, but you really don't talk to SPD. You just make it a part of your rounding to talk to SPD, but it's not really SPD. And SPD doesn't want to talk to O. Good. O is mean, but then they're not mean. Cuz when I talk to O, they want to be your friend. They just don't know how to be your friend. You know, the guy that wants to be a friend, the guy that want to be a friend, it's just weird for y'all to get there. That's where it is.

EDS, they got their own metrics. And you know what everyone says? Without us, nothing will work. I promise you. Ask every department. They will maul you down. That if we all boycott it right now, everything will be shut down. For some positions, it is true. For others, it is not. But the ones that it is not technically true, the reason why they are peacocking is because they haven't been included. from 1969 to 2013. You know how long that gap is from being even thought about being in a conversation of patient safety and how many of those leaders that we have that were in leadership in a world with no true regulations that are directors of SPD that are leaders of SPD.

These are these are these are these are an organizational structure issue. I want you to write this down if you're taking notes. If you're taking blind notes, blinking, and you just want to close your eyes and blink to take a picture, you can. But it's not going to be on the board. So, I don't know how you're going to blink and take a picture. So, just bring out your phone, take a note, write this down. People move processes. People move processes. Processes create systems. Systems create automation. And automation influences scalability to through technology. That's the order.

That's the order. You can't bring in new gys in an infested world. You have to rebuild starting with the people. What is the fundamental development program that your people have that is innately in you? Like my mother, you remember I said about the the skillet, cast iron skillet. My mother was taught to use a small cast iron skillet. Not because she was told but what she observed. That's the same way you develop organizational structure. And what we have here the system level view. Who optimizes for this? If everyone is siloed in their own world, who ultimately is affected? The hospital business, the business of hospital, the business of healthcare.

So this is not about working harder. If you ask everyone in healthcare, if you ask me, everybody in healthcare works hard. Everyone is on their feet. Everyone's back hurts. Everyone's brain hurts. So it's not about a matter of who works harder than the other. It's now the question is how can we work in the most smart, the most efficient way possible so that when anomalies do come up, we have the brainwidth and the power and the energy to actually go and solve it. Because it's my belief that when you actually structure a organization based on a real system that means people development, process development, not SOPs that sit in a binder that you say we have processes. But if I ask five of your leaders the same question, why do I get five different responses like I asked my auntie, my mama, my grandma about the cast iron skillet?

So it's not about SOPs, but if I go and ask a person to show me what that SOP looks like, why do everyone do different things? And we wonder why that there is no structure. So we have to go from managing departments to governing systems. Say governing systems. Say governing systems. So we have to go from managing these departments to actually governing systems to predict to to have some type of predictive integrated structure. So we look at capabilities that eliminate blindness. Real time visibility. This is important. This is why technology is important. But getting technology without understanding how to properly use the tool is inefficient. So if you use any of these wonderful vendors out here, don't try to pity You're going to do it. Actually go about doing it. Figure out how to actually make it work within your organization. ensure that everyone has it because what training is not this is

not considered training but historically you go to a conference like man we've been trained we have a vendor come in they teach you one hour for two hours you say my team has been trained that is not training training is the consistent recorrection of IDI ideology and concepts over and over again practices and procedures over and over again to ensure that that person is great training is how you parent course correction every single they frustrated or not, but the love that you have for your child will keep you up to continue to keep holding them accountable into the line. That is training. One of my favorite books, it says, "If you train up a child in the way that they should go, when they leave, they'll never depart from you."

That is development. One of my favorite leaders of all time, they call him Jay. Before he sent the leader out, he worked with them for three years oneonone. He had 12 of them that went out and changed the world. That's my big brother Jay. He's my mentor. I love him so much. But big brother Jay spent time with his leaders. He didn't train them one time, do a miracle, jump out of hallway, and say, "Go tell everybody." He developed them. He worked with them. He curated them. He had a development program for everyone. And that's why he still has the greatest organization of all time.

He's the greatest leader ever. So, predictive insight, know what's coming before it arrives. Intervene. We have something before we layer our technology into a company, in a hospital. We never layer our technology in a in a hospital until we have a manual process that mirrors what our technology does. Because if and at any point the technology stops working, I want to make sure that the people in the organization can still operate with efficiency. If I allow for the technology to come over that and we don't develop the manual process and teaching them the why, then guess what? The technology is not beneficial to my organization. It handicaps us.

So, we fix the organization before we layer in the technology. Is our tech cool? Yes, it's cool. Does it have predictive stuff? Yes. Does it stop you from making mistakes when you have it? Yes. Because we built our technology not to track instruments, but to correct behaviors. You correct the behavior. The instrument is going to be there. If I if I track the instrument, I know where it is. But why is it there? That's my question. I know who did it. Did anybody stop who did it? We can do that here. Architecture and intelligence equals visibility. Not just intelligence of technology.

Architecture systems. What is systems? Programmatic way of doing something over and over again from people development, process development, and you test and you assess over and over again. What we did in our organization, y'all can take this down if you want. Within our built system, we're able to work with HR, got it approved that every time they they grew in a belt, that's when they got a raise. So people can get raises without being managers. Because I told my team, management shouldn't be the only way that you get paid more because everyone is not a manager. Some people are specialists. I want to keep you there.

So, we run our organizations like Harry Potter. Put on the sword and hat. Gryffindor, Slytherin. Why? Because we want them to fit where they fit and we don't want them to go into management not liking people. But they TOOK THE JOB BECAUSE THAT was the only way they can get paid more. It's very crazy what happens when you actually start building structure. Now you have a new technician that sees value in their organization. Now you see a technician and we have the service techs too. So now you see the technician go from a tech to a service tech. They then go from tech to materials. Then go from tech to leadership, tech to or leaison. And that leadership circle we value it the same. Very important for us to understand this. So SIPs exists from operational blindness. We have our operational system. This is the people part, people in process. Then we have our technology that we layer on top.

This is the visual part. And what what does this change? It changes everything. And we refra we reframe. The reframe that changes everything is the old belief is we're not executing well enough. The new truth is your system just needs to evolve. We're operating on a 20-year-old system today in a total different world. Can we agree that this world is totally different from before pandemic? Can we agree? So that means that if we're operating in a whole new world, we need to actually create new systems that can support the new world. Get poker hunts. I lost two points, didn't I? I know. I know. I'll get it back, bro. I'll get it back tonight when I party. I'll get it back. All right. So, you are not failing. The system is failing. And I want y'all to understand this. Eliminating operational blindness is not a health is is how healthcare operations becomes predictable, governable, sustainable, and all.

I'll take the lead. Since the age of 12, I've been about my father's business. other. Age of 30, he sent me to his

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Operational Blindness: What’s Costing Hospitals Millions"?

Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs (Host).

What is "Operational Blindness: What’s Costing Hospitals Millions" about?

Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs discusses the concept of operational blindness in hospitals during a keynote speech at the RNBC conference, emphasizing how overlooked inefficiencies can cost healthcare institutions millions and potentially impact patient care. He shares his motivations for addressing these critical issues in the healthcare industry, highlighting the real-life implications of effective…

What is mentioned in this YouTube Channel UCNFpdzMKNcVkP3kn1x1lXMw episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Dr Jake Taylor Jacobs, Operational Blindness, NASCAR, Sharon Green, RNBC conference, Genesis. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Operational Blindness: What’s Costing Hospitals Millions"?

The episode runs 55 min; the transcript is about 9,858 words in 79 timestamped sections.

More from YouTube Channel UCNFpdzMKNcVkP3kn1x1lXMw

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 15, 2026.