"I think we've reached a very strange point that even if people do things perfectly – a perfect implementation with all the lean processes and all the great outcomes, people in the organizations are still mad," said Branzell.

"They're still furious that they're going through this much change, and there are so many demands on them. And the second you get done with this, you get to do the next thing. What we're hearing is there's 10-12 initiatives all occurring simultaneously, and there's zero downtime anymore. They're stressed, and the inability to create an environment you can be positive about is all erased."

[See also: Stage 2: Rubber meets the road.]

Branzell told the audience he had recently visited a hospital that had just completed what he would call "a very good implementation."

It was completely endorsed by the clinical side, came in under budget, and yet "everyone was miserable," he said.

The audience laughed.

"This industry is trying to change too fast," Branzell said, and not for the right reasons all the time, often misguided without standards and clear guidance from the federal government."

Blouin agreed. "I think we have information overload and initiative overload."

"You can't have too many balls in the air at one time," Fifer said, generating more audience applause.

Branzell ended his observations with what he called "a bold statement":

"I truly believe that almost every bit of technology, solutions and process to fix our problems already exists today -- they're sitting in this audience," he said to applause. Branzell called for greater collaboration among healthcare organizations.

"I think it's our job, especially the three of us, to create an environment of solicitation of blatantly sharing best practices out there, at a place that none of us can even fathom to get it into our organizations as quickly as we can," he said.