Resource Center

Improving Patient Satisfaction: Leadership

by Sheryl J. Bronkesh, MBA

Patient satisfaction begins with fundamental shared values, a vision of quality care and service, and a mission of doing one’s best to meet every patient’s individual needs and expectations. It is a process as much as an attitude, and so it must be planned, monitored continually, and measured frequently. Ensuring that patient satisfaction happens consistently requires commitment from everyone in the practice. Leaders inspire and insure this commitment.

Who has the leadership responsibility in a practice? It could be you, a department manager or a physician. Regardless of your position, you should understand and hone leadership skills. Your domain may extend throughout the practice, or it may extend only over your patients, exam rooms, and the staff members you rely on most often. No matter how large or small your domain, you can have the passion, integrity, and quality that characterize effective leaders. Management master Tom Peters considers leadership the single most important requirement for organizational success.

Be a leader wherever your corner of the world is. Make your commitment to your patients real. Explain to others on staff how they are expected to demonstrate quality service and care, then exemplify these traits yourself in your actions. Encourage everyone to really listen to patients, to hear what is not said as well as what is spoken, and to share information or insight that will be helpful. Staff should be rewarded for calling attention to patient complaints and concerns, just as they are encouraged and rewarded for suggesting and implementing improvements and efficiencies.

Success is a Team Effort
For a leader, one of the greatest challenges is to form a team from a group of individuals with distinct personalities, abilities, experiences, likes, and dislikes. But thriving practices only happen when a team works, plays, and learns together in pursuit of a shared goal. According to Mark Kelly, author of The Adventures of a Self-Managing Team, a team that works well together demonstrates these characteristics:

• Clearly defined goals and expectations.
• Clearly established roles and responsibilities.
• Well-documented guidelines and ground rules.
• Open communication in an atmosphere of trust and respect.
• Continuous learning and training in appropriate skills.
• Patience and support by management.
• Rewards tied to results.
• A desire to improve and innovate.

My experience in talking with hundreds of practices, including medical, audiology, optometric, and others, confirms that successful practices share these characteristics, whereas organizations that cope ineffectively with change lack these traits. Interestingly, these latter practices also tend to have high staff turnover. This makes sense – teams seldom have winning seasons when veteran players are constantly leaving and being replaced by rookies.

Here are some tips for building a championship team:

• Hire the right people. Don’t offer the job to someone who has all the right skills but a personality or values that are mismatched to the practice. Thorough, in-depth interviews of candidates can reveal much about their attitude, values, work ethic, and belief system.
  
• Diversity in ethnicity, culture, age, and experience ensures that a variety of perceptions and perspectives are brought to the team and to your patients.
  
• Acknowledge and reward team and individual actions that reflect the values of the practice. Recognition and appreciation are the best ways to reinforce desired behavior. When a staff member is caught in the act of doing something special, pay them a compliment!
  
• Seek staff input and participation when developing the practice mission, goals, and policies. Employees who have participated in setting goals can better understand how their jobs relate to practice goals, and they are more effective and committed.
  
• Share business and clinical issues with staff. Too often, business matters stay in the front office and patient care problems stay in the back office. The entire practice is affected by both sides of the house, and employees will work as a team more effectively if they understand the bigger perspective.
  
• Identify barriers that prevent working as a team. As the practice grows, traditional work flows and assignments will need to be evaluated and modified. Benchmarking other practices, upgrading skills, and seeking expert advice may be wise investments of time, effort, and money.

It takes teamwork to have a practice that functions effectively and efficiently, but it also takes leadership. Don’t be afraid to lead your team, no matter where you are in the practice hierarchy. Even in a large practice managed by a physician or corporate entity, the audiologist is the leader of his/her patients and the staff members who work with his/her patients every day. Strong, effective teams don’t spring to life overnight. They grow and mature together when given plenty of coaching, nurturing, and leadership.