From the Ground Up

“I hope that as you read this book you will not only learn the successful techniques of engaging and supporting frontline staff but will also be inspired to improve healthcare wherever you work.”
—from the foreword by Mitchell H. Katz, MD, CEO and President, NYC Health + Hospitals

“A playbook to revolutionize America’s inadequate health care system… Health care professionals, managers, and educators should welcome these eye-opening and valuable strategies.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A clarion call to pull American healthcare away from profiteering and corporatization and back to its roots in healing and helping. Lazes and Rudden argue that collective action is needed now and present strengthened labor-management partnerships as one effective strategy. Frontline workers—including nurses and doctors—must have a say in improving their work environments, putting aside requirements for excessive documentation and precise billing and focusing instead on what matters most: patients and the health of all of us.”
—Theresa Brown, RN, Clinical Faculty Member, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift

“From the Ground Up gets under the covers in its detailed descriptions of healthcare systems that have successfully engaged in efforts to fix America’s underperforming hospitals. Everyone in a leadership role should read this book as it offers a wealth of practical advice for organizations intent on improving their clinical care delivery.”
—Amy C. Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School, and author of The Fearless Organization

“In this book, Lazes and Rudden provide practical strategies for providing better and more accessible healthcare services for all of us. It should be studied by anyone who recognizes the need to revamp our deeply flawed healthcare system. Frontline staff participation is especially critical in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic to make sure equipment and protective clothing are available to help staff care for patients.”
—Mary Kay Henry, President, SEIU

“Politicians and others have focused too much on how patients can pay for their healthcare and not enough on how care itself is delivered. No other book does more to offer practical solutions to the significant crisis of care delivery within our hospitals. Healthcare administrators and caregivers at all levels need to read this book.”
—Paul F. Clark, Professor and Director, School of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn State University

Peter Lazes, PhD, is the founder and former director of Programs for Employment and Workplace Systems and of the Healthcare Transformation Project, both at Cornell University. For over forty years, he has been dedicated to designing systems in which the knowledge and experience of frontline staff are used to improve patient care and to save the jobs of American workers.

Marie Rudden, MD, is a psychoanalyst and clinical assistant professor in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine and an associate editor for the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. Rudden is also on the North American Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and is a training and supervising analyst at the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute.

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