The what and how of physician engagement

by Kenneth H. Cohn The inspiration for today's post comes from an external and an internal source. For the external source, I thank Drs. Kenneth Bertka and Robert Heizelman at Ohio-based Mercy for their post entitled "Leading Physician Engagement: Spanning Boundaries, Communicating Change." Having had the pleasure of working at Mercy, I assure readers that it is a faith-based system that lives its values daily of reverence for all people, community, justice, commitment to the poor, stewardship, courage and integrity. The authors wrote the first step to physician engagement entails establishing a direction, achieving shared understanding of goals and strategy around a team approach, and care coordination for optimal population health management. The second step involves alignment, what they call "connecting the dots" to move forward in a coordinated, focused manner and escape constraining silos, which forces people out of their comfort zones. They noted that addressing shared unmet needs may be a bridge that feels less threatening. Completion of the previous two steps paves the way for the third step of building commitment, transparency, trust, and mutual respect. The authors likened progressing through these changes to progressing through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They have done a masterful job of outlining the "what" of healthcare transformation. To address the "how" of healthcare transformation...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs