Sorry Works! Presentations
Many healthcare organizations (both acute and long-term care) as well as healthcare associations (national, regional, and state organizations) have hosted Sorry Works! presentations. To see a sample list of organizations that have received a Sorry Works! presentation, click here.
A Sorry Works! presentation is a great introduction to disclosure that literally helps healthcare, insurance, and legal professionals conceptualize and embrace disclosure. Most healthcare professionals have never been taught post-event communication strategies, except sternly being told to “shut up” after something goes wrong. So, it’s difficult for well-meaning docs, nurses, and other front-line staff to actually visualize how disclosure works. They just don’t know to say when things go wrong ---and this is where a Sorry Works! presentation can help.
Sorry Works! Founder Doug Wojcieszak begins every presentation by asking his audience to respond to an actual case in which a routine procedure leads to a tragic death. Medical facts are intentionally sparse with the case scenario and staff are confronted with a situation that requires empathy and communications skills — which is a struggle for many docs and nurses. This case drives home to audiences why disclosure training is needed. He then discusses the important different differences between empathy and apology, and teaches audience members how to stay connected post-event with patients/residents and families without prematurely admitting fault. Staff learn how to effectively communicate and empathize with families post-event. Wojcieszak concludes by demonstrating how a disclosure program quickly resolves cases, saving time and money while improving quality/safety and providing healing & closure for all sides (clinicians included). Of course, there is ample time in every presentation for Questions and Answers from the audience as well as discuss additional cases.
The time period for a Sorry Works! presentation is typically one hour, however, presentations can be as short as 30 minutes or as long as three hours. We will customize the presentation to fit your time requirements.
Sorry Works! is passionate about teaching disclosure – and part of this passion is shared in how we schedule these introductory Sorry Works! presentations. We always tell organizations (hospitals, insurers, long term care facilities, etc) to schedule as many Sorry Works! talks in a given day as they wish for the same price. We charge you the same price whether we give one talk or 10 talks. The one-day record is seven talks at an Arkansas hospital. We provide this service because it’s impossible to put every doc and nurse in the same room at the same time, so we want to provide multiple learning opportunities over a given day for as many staff members as possible. Also, by exposing as many staff members as possible to the disclosure message, we increase the number of staff who will literally self-identify themselves to leadership as wanting to participate in the development of the disclosure program within the organization.
Finally, Sorry Works! presentations always qualify for CME, CEU, and CLE credits.