Physician Engagement

Collaborative Uncertainty

Last weekend, I had an early taste of spring, as I facilitated a medical staff retreat with hospital leaders and Board members.  We discussed: – physician leaders who have improved quality, safety, and service – building a culture of collaboration from the ground up – career-saving strategies to prevent frustration and burnout. We also discussed how we could [...]

Collaborative Strategic Planning

Last week, I had the pleasure of teaching a case discussion at the Harvard School of Public Health, entitled (A) Physician-Led Planning: The CEO’s Dilemma and (B) The Physicians’ Response.  Of the approximately 60 Masters in Public Health students, about 2/3 were physicians learning additional skills, such as systems thinking, that bode well for the [...]

Making a Collaborative Difference: The Pogo Epiphany

Last week, I had the pleasure of facilitating a medical staff retreat in a setting to which I always enjoy returning. The didactic sessions were great, and what I will always remember was a dinner in which I was seated near an orthopedic surgeon. He said passionately: I am the problem…. I want to make [...]

Collaborative Engagement: An Overdue Update

This week, I had the pleasure of facilitating a medical staff meeting in which we discussed survey results regarding provider engagement.  Engaged workers strongly agree with the following statements: This organization really inspires the very best in me I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what is normally expected to help this [...]

Collaborative Critters: Accelerating Physician-Hospital Integration

I spent a wonderful weekend in Florida with an outstanding hospital that desired to accelerate its physician-hospital integration progress.  As facilitator, I presented an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT), discussed medical staff integration models, and concluded with strategies to enhance physician engagement.   Then, I watched with pride as groups of physicians, administrators, [...]

Collaborative Hospital-Physician Relationships: Moving Beyond Control

In a previous post, I mentioned that the January 1, 2012 deadline for Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Medicare applications is rapidly approaching. In a recent Advisory E-Alert, entitled the Hospital-Government Complex, Mark Weiss, warned physicians: The fact is, the ACO is simply a model for hospital control of physician practices, cloaked in the respectability of [...]

Successful Collaboration in Healthcare: Review of Colleen Stukenberg’s New Book

I moved Successful Collaboration in Healthcare: A Guide for Physicians, Nurses, and Clinical Documentation Specialists to the top of my list of books to review because I was intrigued that a nurse would write a guide to collaboration.  As mentioned in  Nursing Collaboration, most of the valuable clinical insights that I have learned have come from [...]

Collaborative Tools to Facilitate Physician Engagement: Post 84

For me, understanding physician-hospital relations is a never-ending iterative journey rather than a task with a finite beginning and end.  As I prepare for this year’s presentation to the ACHE Congress (82 x, Physician Recruiting, Contracting, and Retention Strategies, 3/24/10), I recall my first presentation, where I asked the audience, “What is the first thing that [...]

Hospital Leaders Whom I Admire: Post 82

Happy Valentine’s Day. I apologize that three weeks have elapsed since my last post: My wife and I put our house on the market.  After living there 12 years, I underestimated the amount of work that it would take to have it ready to show; please see my post on the benefits of decluttering, including before [...]

Collaborative Crisis: Post 78

As I described in Dealing with a Medical Staff in Crisis, I have witnessed the power of independent community physicians to affect hospital revenues and hiring.  The quickest way to explain how we got to this point, is to refer to Maslow’s Pyramid, where each party took a lofty view of its own goals (self-actualization, at [...]