In this episode of our Healthcare Experience Foundation partners’ Healthcare Experience Matters podcast, HXF co-founder and president Katie Owens joins to discuss physician engagement, communication, and results sharing.
As Katie describes on today’s podcast, for many years HXF has embraced the opportunity to support senior teams and physician leaders with advancing the physician experience. This is a major area of focus in HXF’s role as PRC Excellence Accelerator®.
“PRC has the largest database of physician loyalty in the United States,” Katie said.
It’s no secret that many organizations are saying physician engagement is a priority, and we know that what we measure gets managed. This is why it is so fundamentally important to have a process in place to systematically measure and improve physician engagement.
“It has just been one of the big necessities given the current climate of healthcare right now,” she said.
Prioritizing Physician Engagement
When physician engagement becomes a top priority, we build trust and confidence across the continuum of care. This empowers physicians to refer their patients to your specialists or to your healthcare system.
When physicians can say with confidence that your hospital or healthcare system is an excellent place to practice, they are four times more likely to recommend your organization to their patients, family members and loved ones who may need care.
The stress and strain brought on by Covid-19 has taken a real toll on morale and engagement. Our HXF partners see heightened levels of compassion fatigue, stress and burnout.
Measuring Physician Engagement
It’s becoming more and more apparent that it’s just not sufficient for organizations to measure physician engagement every few years. It may not even be enough to measure it every other year.
We know organizations have unique challenges with their medical staff and there are different dynamics in place at each institution. There is no “one size fits all” answer to the question of how often a survey should be conducted, but an annual approach seems to work best.
“At the end of the day, what we’re seeing work the most to move the needle is at least an annual survey,” Katie said.
Getting Back to Basics
HXF sees a real need to go “back to basics.” There is a strong call for organizations to address resiliency, gratitude and emotional intelligence.
“We know self-awareness affords us the chance to self-manage,” Katie said.
Self-awareness it is at the root of building empathetic and successful relationships. Emotional intelligence could be a key factor in driving success and improved performance in any given individual’s career.
The most effective way that we’ve seen organizations measure this is by conducting a survey, but it’s important to note that the survey does not replace the conversation.
Surveys allow a senior team the opportunity to take a macro view of institutional factors that need to be managed or improved and then it starts that conversation.
“Demonstrating to physicians and providers that your voice really matters, and that we’re going to take action as a leadership team to make this organization the best place for you to practice, is really important in advancing any given balanced scorecard result,” Katie said.
Learn More
As a friendly reminder, Healthcare Experience Matters is now available wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Please make sure to listen to today’s podcast via the link below to learn more about today’s topic and communicating survey results with folks at your organization.