Here’s my latest article, on The Silo Effect, at Long-Term Living magazine’s online site:
The employees listened carefully to their boss as he outlined a new procedure.
“Any questions?”
None were raised, and the boss, pleased at the consensus, adjourned the meeting. But outside the conference room, the murmurs started.
How do they expect us to do that? Don’t they know that’s going to lead to this other problem? If they want that to happen, why didn’t they just do it this way? You and I both know that’ll never work, but I’m not going to be the one to say anything.
Me neither.
What is the Silo Effect?
The Silo Effect refers to a lack of information flowing between groups or parts of an organization. On a farm, silos prevent different grains from mixing. In an organization, the Silo Effect limits the interactions between members of different branches of the company, thus leading to reduced productivity.
Long-term care silos
Silos operate at various levels of long-term care. They can be found in the silent acquiescence of department head meetings, hospital transfers without complete documentation, care plan meetings where key players are missing, and nursing home admissions that neglect to provide residents and families with the information they need to become proactive members of the team.
In fact, our current healthcare system is one of silos: private insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, hospitals, nursing homes, home healthcare, regulators—all working independently, but connected, to haphazardly manage the nation’s healthcare.
For more, visit LTL mag: How to eliminate the silo effect in LTC organizations
Great article and applicaiton of I/O concepts 🙂 I first heard about this when a LTC manager came to give a talk. The irony was that he wasn’t having much success in managing the situation either…
Thanks for taking the time to read the article and comment, C. Breaking down silos is kind of like family therapy for organizations — trying to get everyone to communicate and work together for the good of the whole.