|
|
Involve Your Physicians in Your Customer Relations Effort
By Catherine Baumgardner, CHG Associate |
What comes first, the physician involvement or the service program? Maybe you’re struggling with how and when to involve your physicians in your service effort. Perhaps you’ve heard your staff say, “I’ll be happy to live by service standards when they make the physicians do it, too.”
Often, we think that we have to develop “it” before we involve those physicians—because we think that if they aren’t completely happy with everything we do, they’ll sabotage our efforts.
But when’s the best time to involve physicians? The answer to that comes in recognizing that the relationship between the hospital and physician is heavily intertwined.
The physician looks good to their patient when there’s a good outcome and the patient was happy with the hospital experience. On the flip side, if the physician has a good experience with the hospital, then the physician feels they were pretty smart to do their work at this hospital.
8 Strategies for Getting Physicians Involved
1. Position their role to them as both service receiver and service giver.
2. Partner with physician leadership to gain buy-in to the above positioning.
3. Identify what the physicians view as patient needs and develop a plan for how you together can deliver on those needs.
4. Identify how to make physician interactions with your organization more positive.
5. Ask them how they see themselves fitting into your service effort and what role they’ll play.
6. Involve them in training and/or standard setting for the organization.
7. Clearly establish the WIIFM, the What’s In It For Me?
8. Hold each other accountable and develop ways to do so. |
With this kind of co-dependent relationship comes the idea that physician behavior also plays a large role in the patient’s perspective of the hospital. How physicians interact with their patients and the staff weighs heavily on the impression patients have of your organization. Therefore, it’s important not to wait, but to involve physicians in your service efforts from the very beginning.
What can you expect as a result of physician involvement? You’ll certainly find that patient satisfaction is higher. A physician engaged in your service process will better meet the information and communication needs of your patients. Research has found that when patients are happy with their care, they’re more compliant with the physician and staff care instructions. Better compliance means patients who get better more quickly or avoid hospitalization because they are better caring for themselves. That’s an outcome that would make all medical professionals happy.
The important lesson is understanding that the physician and hospital are equal partners in the service effort. Whether you’re just beginning or striving to enhance a service effort, the physician is a key part of the process that shouldn’t be overlooked or downplayed. Working together on service efforts is critical to the breakthrough changes that many are waiting for in their current efforts. What are you waiting for?
Catherine Baumgardner is an associate with Corporate Health Group, a national healthcare consulting firm, and is based in Pennsylvania. For additional information, please call 1-888-334-2500 or contact us via the Web.
 |
To print this page select the print button from your browser window or click here. |
|
