Book excerpt: You got into healthcare because you wanted to help people, but quickly discovered providing high-quality care is challenging. Seemingly impossible demands are placed on you and your team. Some coworkers are constantly complaining; others are in their silos doing only what they must to get through the long days. Collaboration is often lacking, and patients suffer the painful consequences. It’s easy to become overloaded with work and overwhelmed with negativity. This is not how the healthcare profession has to be. There is a new science – Positive Psychology – that studies how people are able to perform extraordinarily well in challenging situations. After a dozen years of research in prestigious medical centers, an evidence-based method for applying this science has been developed. That six step program is PROPEL. You will read stories illustrating the experiences of doctors, nurses and administrators who learned to use PROPEL to transform their professional life (and, for many, their personal life as well). You will learn how they were able to attain remarkable results with their teams, units and clinics: • Staff callout and FMLA decreased 75% • Wait times for chemotherapy infusion reduced 6 hours • Staff turnover dropped 80% • Pediatric MRI scheduling driven down from 14 weeks to 10 days • Bone marrow transplant procedures increased by 50% • ED diversion due to psychiatric patient boarding virtually eliminated • Patient fall rate cut by 70% • Use of agency and travelers nurses abolished • Patient satisfaction scores up 50% The cumulative impact to the bottom line has been calculated to be millions of dollars. The most meaningful measure of PROPEL’s success, however, comes from the thousands of dedicated professionals who have expressed heartfelt gratitude for having learned how to recapture their joy for working in healthcare.