Actually, John Pepper, CEO of Disney when CEO of Procter and Gamble was exceptionally dedicated to health care issues.


While Pepper led P&G, P&G developed a model for the possibility of privatized Worker Comp by insuring the best quality care for any worker injured or with an injury in question, that was not constrained by health insurance or state systems. They took this model into a consortium of companies in Ohio and influenced hospitalization methodology as well.
The former CTO of Procter and Gamble went on a national road trip to present this invention. Jim Palmer, CTO of P&G and often described as no. 2 in command at P&G, had an exceptionally unusual background in the he originally headed HR before he went into IT at Procter and Gamble and vested many hours of energy and time designing systems tied to the health of employees at Procter and Gamble. He has since retired.

I first say Pepper's orientation to investing time and dollars in leadership development through a project I staffed and then through a national network of change agents in the Bay Area examining telemedicine, met up with Palmer and his success story.

All this to say I predict we will see much more out of Disney regarding health. And I would be careful not to describe it in the context of how Pepper leads, as "if Disney ran the hospital."
Pepper is the first one to credit people in his organizations with innovation and leadership and invite them to step up and do the work.

He is not a "top down leader" and you would never find him blogging talking about his opinions or how he leads and what he thinks. His humility is remarkable and his leadership is very much the leadership of a Naval Pilot, which is his background. Lead the noise of the plane and let others in your command show up to do their best work by inspiring them and giving them credit.

Disney's foundation's mission is to serve children health issues. It has been for years. What has happened since Eisner's departure is that true to Pepper's leadership style he is directing less and leading more and inviting people to do their jobs and initiate programs they believe in. However in Foundation terms I do not believe you can describe that Disney owns the hospital. That would be like saying that Robert Wood Johnson Foundation owns the hospitals where they fund projects our of the National Health Care Leadership Institute or other places.

Foundation methodology often now monitors roi of investing dollars with coaching and leadership development programs that accompany their donations. Kellogg, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have been doing that for the last decade
and to their credit organizing communities of practice with collaborative social media tools.

While Disney has given the money and I cannot speak to the Foundation method's at the present time, if it follows the Pepper pattern of leadership, you are likely to see Toyota style meetings at this hospital and serious dollars dedicated to professional development, culture and change. That is what I would watch for.

Pepper use to be a fan of Stephen Covey and will go the mile to invest in professional development for his organizations. In fact, part of the P&G way that Pepper supported was to assure that every manager employed for 5 years plus was vested into a professional development program.

Last week I attended the Disney Institute at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. Many of the stories and examples that the Disney staff drew on were healthcare-related. In addition, many of the attendees were representing hospitals and healthcare-related organizations around central and southern Ohio. Studying the Disney way and adapting it to healthcare firms is becoming a rather large (and exciting to follow) trend in this sector of the Midwest!

I'm eager to see how The Disney Hospital pans out and if they will be able to successfully couple superior customer service with operational efficiency (or perhaps the efficiency component is of less concern to them?). Whether they intend it to be or not, it should definitely be an interesting "experiment" for the rest of us to study.

As a mom, who has had her kids in the hospital, I think this is a fabulous idea! As an interior designer, I would love to be part of this project! Can you please tell me who I should get in touch with. Thank you

Rita - sorry - I don't know who to contact. maybe you could try someone at Florida Hospital

Rita, if you want to know about interior design for kids in hospitals, contact Vanderbilt Children's Hospital -
The CEO, James Shmerling spent many months attracting all the extra's into the design of this hospital that was built very recently.

Since it was built in the last decade, it is rather state of the art. What will be interesting is to compare this to Disney, if you can.

Shmerling is a remarkable community leader and hospital administrator. It is rare that a hospital associated with a medical school brings in someone from outside the academic community. Shmerling was a real gift to this community medically and for kids.

Carolyn, I want to thank you for your entry. I am often viewed as speaking with a "higher thought" than what some hospital administrators and professionals have context for.

When you stated where you participated and how in Southern and Central Ohio, you are talking about the territory in which Pepper organized his first health related community of practice with 200 organizations and community groups.

It was because of this thinking that I chose to do a special leadership study and thesis that investigated the literature on intersector cooperation.

Health care change is a very difficult conversation and it cannot happen without a method of initiative that is often utilized and reported on in Booz Allen Hamilton's publications based on Future Scenario Planning and inter sector cooperation. Many of the remedies that the health care group at BAH has fostered in the international UN Community are based on this methodology.

I am now restudying the literature in this area and examining some theory based on tracking roi using data and IT methodology beyond the practice of medicine but relevant to the business and service of health care.

What I never see in the blogging venture of hospitals, consumers, etc are a philosophy of change that reflects this. Without it you can not lead change and foster change in one industry view, e.g. a hospital that has a broader view of impact that is societal.

Health care is not going to change until organization leaders, e.g. hospital administrators and CEO's learn how to respectfully communicate within this context.

I know what you saw in Ohio is an example of that.

It is therefore an opportunity to recognize that any investment made by Disney in a hospital will be based on tracking data and impacting roi where the measurements and accounting systems are traced to intangibles and tangibles that measure societal impact, as well as organization performance.

This means the way we recruit the kind of people who serve the projects are going to have an emotional intelligence and integral background that goes beyond the education and practices of one particular profession, e.g. hospital administration.

In fact these practices may be organized with a new view of finance. The midwest corporations were some of the first companies that took on private insurance methodologies for employees an eliminated the purchase of traditional insurance plans from the Blues and other insurance industry providers.

It is said that environment can help someone to fell better. Why do you think there's so much criticism against Disney's idea?
Thnx. Juan

I must transfer the question to you. How would you feel working at the Disney Hospital?

Juan, point me to the criticism please.

I teach a course based on architecture, social network analysis and have customized it for health care. The redesign of health care "facilities" is in my opinion going to go community centric.

What that means would require far more writing than I can do now.

But at some point, I may write it up and send it to Tony. Too busy right now on redesigning my websites. And you can email me specific questions.

The gist of the criticism that I've heard are from people who don't think Disney amusement park principles can be applied at all to the serious environment of healthcare. Obviously, I don't agree with the criticism. If I did, I wouldn't have started this blog - we need to get out of our healthcare silos and learn insights from other industries and experts.

Disney isn't a master of amusement parks, Disney is the master of creating positive, memorable experiences that drive "5-out-of-5" passionate customers. How much do we need that in healthcare, or in any organization?

Personally, I think it would be neat to work at the Disney Hospital. The most valuable thing I would learn is how a consumer-centric (and employee-empowering) organizational culture is created and constantly managed.

Tony, I think that one lesson on this can be learned from P&G post Pepper's departure. P&G is exceptionally consumer centric.

1. During Pepper's career, they were the first to reward brand manager's for planning for a retirement of a brand that consumer's were no longer attracted to.

2. Post Pepper and under the new CEO, Alan Lafley, P&G was the first global company that I could identify that got into program centric marketing looking at marketing by country, local region and age & culture.

3. Disney is not know for being consumer centric in the past --- in fact the amusement parks have been criticized for being run very militaristic as an entertainment production.

However, where Eisner failed was not learning what it meant to be consumer centric as a transnational global company.

Today, Disney is moving into that market and well beyond how this is conceived with respect to entertainment through partnering and licensing with local groups expert in consumer need. In some respects, it's a bit like Cirque de Soleil that has organized a business plan well beyond the confines of entertainment by in the context of Jeffrey Pfeffer's work, putting employees first to build roi and learning as much as they can about their local markets through some non profit social entrepreneurship initiatives.


I find the vocabulary in health care today lacks imagination that I know you to have personally. However, to build imagination into something innovative that shows roi and respects a level of value for quality that appreciates consumer needs requires a conversation not many in health care that I talk to (or see in the blog world) know how to open in conversation with more sophisticated social network analysis.

Recently in the workforce literature it was announced that today's workforce has 20% of the skills to lead in the 21st century and I believe that true in the practice and formation of institutional medicine. Real innovation in the US is not coming out of the industry it is being driven by leaders with passion and
experience outside the industry in my humble opinion.

That is why we find health care reform stuck on leading change re: insurance coverage rather than opening thinking about consumer need from a societal view that relates to how to have excellent health. That is why I shifted into thinking about health from the perspective of workforce planning and the relationship of health and the needs of people in the workforce personally and as it relates to their families and extended community relationships.

Thank you for your reply. I will most definitely follow through on the contact you kindly gave.

Rita, you are most welcome! Please feel free to call me anytime, if I can be of more assistance. I was on the original design team as a clinical manager for the design of architecture of HMO's ambulatory care centers with Stefian, Stefian and Bradley, http://www.stefian.com. I took what I learned and updated it for the disciplines I have studied since and my research on high performance teams and integrated with my course on the Core Group Theory and Practice.

I presented the beta at Boston's architectural school, Boston Center for Architecture, http://www.the-bac.edu as a CEU program for practicing and experience architects.

I have been a pediatric nurse for 14yrs. I am currently employed at the # 3rd Ranking best pediatric hospital in the USA. I have worked with terminally ill children for the past 5 years. I personally think that this is an amazing idea. No one has or ever will be able to bring forth the kind of joy, laughter, and pure hope for a better world to all age groups than Disney. Yes I agree that hospitals are a serious business, I should know I work in this environment every day. No other company understand children like Disney. A therapuetic environment, which offers the uttmost of distraction therapy, with the aid of Disney Imagineers WOW!

I have been a pediatric nurse for 14yrs. I am currently employed at the # 3rd Ranking best pediatric hospital in the USA. I have worked with terminally ill children for the past 5 years. I personally think that this is an amazing idea. No one has or ever will be able to bring forth the kind of joy, laughter, and pure hope for a better world to all age groups than Disney. Yes I agree that hospitals are a serious business, I should know I work in this environment every day. No other company understand children like Disney. A therapuetic environment, which offers the uttmost of distraction therapy, with the aid of Disney Imagineers WOW!

AS a mom; a former United Methodist minister and one who has been in and out of children's hospitals many times, I think the idea of a themed hospital is an absolute brilliant one, especially one with which children can identify. Disney is and always has been a Happy Place. This is not to say that it will deminish the seriousnious of any ailments of illneses, but with proper advance councelling, it make the chil's experience a much more pleasant; non-threatening one I would love to be a part of the a "advance team" of this project - going out into the local communities and activily letting the communities in and around Orlando know who we are and what we need and what the communty can do and expect from our endeavors. I'm so excited about this effort even though my children are grown and live elsewhere. I feel strongly about all that the Disney Corporation has done in the past to bring happiness into this world to the millions of lives of people and I feel it should not stop now at a time when they need it mose. I'd like to know were I can send my resume.

Sandy Pastor
78 Jennifer Cicle
Ponce Inlet FL 32127

Don't you think there are enough childrens hospitals in Orlando.A new one is opening in Orlando and being built by Nemours. They have been a magnet hospital and dedicated to Childrens Health Care for 50 years. Why can't Disney put its hospital where there is a need...

I find it inesting that no physicians have weighed in on this issue in this forum. Let me be the first. Medicine is medicine - it will not change with a Disney brand. Disney is essentially poposing to change the atmosphere of the hospital, not the actual medical practices. That's great. Many of our studies have found that a positive atmosphere for patients has a direct correlatio with clinical outcome. In fact, this concept has long been pioneered in pediatrics, although as a vascular surgeon I have often wondered why we assume (in my opinion, incorrectly) that adult, and even elderly patients, would not also benefit from a less emotionally sterile environment.
That being said, Florida still has one of the worst malpractice crises in the United States. It is one of the few states with no malpractice limits. In fact, it is so bad in Florida that malpractice insurance is not even REQUIRED anymore, although you must post a sign on your business stating that you don't have insurance if you choose to go that route. Many physicians do this and put their assets in their spouse' name. Like many surgeon in high-risk specialties, athough I interviewed in Florida, I choose not to practice there because of it malpractice crisis. I practice one state away, in a more friendly environment, although I take my family to Florida (you guessed it, Disneyworld) at least once every two years.
You cannot separate the malpractice crisis and insurance crisis from the problems of medicine. Currently, 80% of malpractice cases are won by the physician, yet at a tremendous financial cost that current law does not allow the physician or his insurance agency to collect, raising insurance rates dramatically. On the other hand, almost all states allow the plaintiffs to collect all of their litigation costs from the physician when the plaintiff wins. The Disney brand will work in Florida only because it is "window dressing," albeit top-of-the-line window dressing, to medical care. But it will not change the underlying problems in medicine, which are especially severe in the Florida market.