Aimee Greeter and Taylor Harrison join Mark to discuss Five New Approaches to Maximize Physician Engagement. Aimee and Taylor specialize in hospital/physician alignment, accountable care responsiveness, hospital service line development, clinical integration initiatives, strategic planning, mergers and collaborations, operational issues, and financial management.

Episode Synopsis

Mark, Aimee and Taylor discuss strategies to better engage with healthcare providers and maximize their engagement to drive change for an organization. Throughout their discussion, they walk through strategies to assess physician engagement and drive change within an organization.

Three Primary Drivers of Change 

1. Impact of Reimbursement Changes
2. Authority of Decisions
3. Relationships with Other Providers and Organizations

 Five Approaches to Increase Physician Engagement

1.  Increase transparency and create a collective mission/vision.
   1. Ask questions of providers and ensure that any grievances are quickly addressed.
   2. Use multiple forms of communication, multiple times.
   3. Manage physicians by walking around—listen and learn.
   4. Determine the motivation behind physicians and work to create incentives that match.
   5. Develop a philosophy of mutual benefit and shared vision.
   6. Strive to be extremely transparent from upper management down.
   7. Solicit meaningful physician input early and often, and then act on it.
   8. Engage physicians in balancing business and clinical priorities.
   9. Set realistic goals together and go for early wins.
2. Nurture physician leaders.
   1. Identify, mentor, and educate physician leaders.
   2. Invest in physician leaders.
   3. Reward physicians in ways they value.
   4. Attend a leadership conference together or hire a coach to complete leadership training on-site.
   5. Get to know physicians on a personal level—meet one-on-one.
3. Capture and share data.
   1. Implement processes that help determine what data is to be collected and how.
   2. Use data as the platform for discussions on improving care and lowering costs.
   3. Foster trusting relationships by sharing data frequently and broadly.
   4. Encourage physicians to use data to make decisions.
4. Develop metrics and hold physicians accountable.
   1. Ensure that physicians are a part of creating the metrics (quality, cost, patient satisfaction, etc.).
   2. Make metrics specific to each individual specialty and/or sub-specialty (depending upon the size of the organization).
   3. Utilize physicians to meet with colleagues that fail to meet these measures.
   4. Tie certain incentives to these metrics (i.e. compensation, service line improvement initiatives, medical directorships, etc.)
5. Work toward clinical integration.
   1. Regardless of the format in which you pursue clinical integration, establish a collaborative method of delivering care.
   2. Involve as many physicians as possible (employed, community, etc.).
   3. Determine a method that best meets your needs – not all organizations should immediately pursue an ACO or CIN.

Extras

White Paper on Maximizing Physician Engagement (includes survey and case studies referenced)

Follow Aimee on Twitter

Connect with Aimee on LinkedIn

Connect with Taylor on LinkedIn

Contact Information

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