Since our launch in 1999, The Watershed Group has helped over 100 hospice care companies and not-for-profit organizations turn potential crises into positive change. Our clients have achieved increased productivity, financial stability, and business growth when they work with us.
Below, you can find several case studies that show the many ways we can positively impact our clients, personally and professionally:
Case Study: Large Hospice Organization
Summary: Patti Moore was engaged by a prominent hospice organization to help them regain their standing in the marketplace by hiring new leadership, re-engaging referral sources, and strengthening their financial processes.
Challenge: This organization had been a significant player in the hospice care industry for 25 years, but the company was quickly losing its momentum of growth, its focus on customer service, and its financial stability. Staff members were leaving; morale was down; the budget was in the red. The Hospice CEO had been out sick for an extended period, which created a significant vacuum of leadership. As a result, employees lost their sense of cohesion and began working in silos. It became clear that the organization would soon be overtaken by competition in the marketplace if the crisis wasn’t handled swiftly—and correctly.
Solution: Patti Moore stepped and began the turn around with an initial organizational assessment. She interviewed the company’s staff, referral sources, physicians, donors, and board members. From these important conversations, she identified several key issues. One key issue was the CEO either needed to be more present onsite, or should retire. Patti also determined that the company had to re-engage their referral sources and rethink their financial processes so that the business could grow. She then identified which staff needed to be removed—and which staff had to be relocated to other departments for better productivity.
Impact: Ultimately, Patti’s intervention turned the company’s crisis into an opportunity for growth. The CEO gracefully retired with respect and dignity, and new leadership was hired. A renewed sense of energy and focus was infused into the organization. Staff became more focused on their direction, and the organization began to grow again. In addition, Patti provided the company with a strategic roadmap to re-assess the company’s billing processes. The budget was soon in the black instead of the red. Today, this large hospice organization has a cohesive team of leadership and staff who work together with a focus on excellent patient care and stable business growth.
Christy Whitney,President and CEO, Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado
“Patti has a great, non-threatening style that gets results. Too often, you bring a consultant in and people are totally turned off. Patti is just the opposite; she inspires and motivates people to change.”
Case Study: Karen Rollins CEO, Avow Hospice
Summary: Karen Rollins, CEO turned to Patti Moore to help Avow Hospice, increase employee engagement and improve company culture through an innovative workshop series.
Challenge: A client of Patti Moore’s for more than a decade, Karen Rollins is the former CEO of Avow Hospice in Naples, Florida. Over the years, Patti has worked closely with Karen as a strategic advisor to support her in her role of executive leader in that hospice. A few years ago, Karen was facing a complex challenge: She wanted to improve the culture at Avow to ensure that employees felt connected to the mission of the organization, and to prevent staff from working in silos. The company sought a holistic approach to bring everyone together as a cohesive team.
Solution: As a longtime mentor and advisor at Avow, Patti was a natural fit to solve this newest problem within the organization. She quickly began working with Avow’s management team to identify specific issues within the company culture. In conjunction with Avow’s board of directors, Patti then developed and implemented a plan to reconnect employees with the vision and passion of the founders of Avow and the core mission: to provide comfort, care, understanding, and dignity to those who are facing death and their loved ones. This plan included a series of half-day workshops titled Avow Traditions, designed for all levels of staff within the organization.
Impact: Today, Avow Traditions has become a regular source of cohesion and energy for the staff at Avow. Now an essential part of the company’s standard employee training program, these workshops teach employees why their jobs matter, and how their work fits into the overarching mission of the organization. As a result, each member of the Avow team understands the company’s values, its mission, and what it takes to serve the community around them. Employee engagement has increased, and the culture at Avow has dramatically improved.
Case Study: Christy Whitney CEO, HopeWest
(formerly Hospice & Palliative Care of Western Colorado)
Summary: Patti Moore conducted an organizational assessment and created an action plan to help CEO Christy Whitney improve management performance and engage the staff and community around one of their satellite hospice and palliative care offices.
Challenge: As the CEO of HopeWest, Christy Whitney oversees a large, rural service area with four satellite offices and a 16-bed hospice care center in western Colorado. Over the past 15 years, Christy has looked to Patti Moore to assist her with a variety of consulting engagements. One major challenge was with one of the company’s satellite offices that was receiving consistent complaints from customers and staff about how that office was managed.
Solutions: To address this challenge of management at a satellite office, Patti Moore was brought in to do an organizational assessment. Through comprehensive interviews with staff, referral sources, and volunteers, she was able to identify the sources of the problematic issues at that office.
Impact: Today, that satellite office has new management—and it is now one of the most successful offices run by HopeWest. Patti’s ability to identify the source of the problem enabled Christy to redesign the structure of the office to improve the engagement of the staff and community alike.
Case Study: Philanthropy and Generosity
Summary: Christy Whitney CEO at HopeWest wanted to update their board of directors on the topic of philanthropy. She asked Patti Moore to design a Board of Directors retreat focused on philanthropy and community engagement.
Challenge: Christy wanted to more actively engage the community and philanthropic donors with their organization. She wanted to examine ways donors could gain a deeper understanding of how the HopeWest staff and volunteers impact the lives of patients and their families, and how community donations enhanced that care.
Solutions: Patti designed a Board of Directors retreat with guest speaker Leanne Kaiser Carlson on the topic “The Abundant Future” and focused on how generosity has changed the world. This retreat ignited the board members to look at generosity and philanthropy in new and expanded ways. Christy with the help of Patti developed a Generosity Steering Committee of cross-organizational staff members. Under Patti’s strategic guidance, this committee collected stories of how HopeWest staff go above and beyond to give to patients and families extraordinary care. Also they identified ways donors can become more actively engaged in the organization by donating time, ideas, and money thus allowing the generosity circle to continue.
Impact: The organizations focus on generosity has helped them to expand their messaging and engage donors and the community in more deep and meaningful ways. Patti continues to work closely with The Generosity Project to look beyond the basics of hospice, and give the donors a truly remarkable experience. In the process, this innovative committee also empowers the role of hospice care staff in sharing their stories of the power of generosity given and received.
Case Study: Mercy Hospice and Palliative Care in Myrtle Beach, SC
Summary: The Board of Directors was looking for a CEO who would be the right change agent to guide Mercy Hospice through a period of growth and transformation.
Solution: Thanks to her extensive network of contacts in the hospice industry, Patrice uncovered someone she thought was the perfect candidate, Sara Jo Faucher. And Patrice gave her candidate the support Sara Jo needed through the processes of interviewing for and orienting to her new job.
“She stayed with me through the entire process,” Sara Jo says. “She even went to the interview and offered support.. It was also part of her contract to mentor me for the first six months. That was tremendously helpful; I’d had a lot of operations experience, but hadn’t done a lot of work with Boards. So one of things she did was to organize a Board retreat. The Board has a lot of respect for her, so that really helped to solidify my position.”
Impact: Mercy Hospice got the change agent it needed in CEO Sara Jo Faucher. Thanks to the work Patti did with Sara Jo and the Board, the new CEO has been able to effectively guide the organization to increased growth and sustainability.