Give a Knock or Take a Knock in the Clinic

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ask anyone in the clinic about vendors vying for face time with the staff and you’ll hear plenty of stories. Whether its the sales guys trying to navigate through the gatekeeper with a phone call or the impromptu visit to the clinic because he/she was just in the neighborhood, these interactions put clinic staff in the position of taking another knock. Regardless of the method for this knock (on the phone or the clinic door) it puts the person in the clinic in a position of “chief information gather and what am I supposed to do with this stuff” everyday.

On the other hand, there are opportunities for clinic staff to give a knock of their own as well. Not to those vendors, but to other organizations in the neighborhood that may be trying to fill a need or solve a problem. One example is a company wellness program. What better audience for a physician or other mid-level provider from a local clinic to offer guidance for better health outcomes through education and awareness? It’s also a great way to start building a new culture in the clinic with a recognition that “sales effort” is not such an ignominious term.

Filed Under: Clinic Awareness, Healthcare Social Media, Patient Experience

Physician Strives to Help During Infamous Paper Chase

May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There is a compelling center of care that I believe deserves some attention – and this one places the physician in that position. While patient-centered care is clearly a critical discussion that must continue to evolve across the continuum, there is another important subject of physician burnout. The nature of this feeling for a physician is a personal one, and I have no intention of offering any sort of general prescription for this condition. However, I would like to share a conversation that I had with a physician a few months ago that may offer some inspiration. As a physician in an immediate care clinic, he had grown familiar with that feeling of being in the middle of providing meaningful care for each patient and sustaining production for the management team. I stopped by the clinic around lunchtime to see how things were going. His door was ajar and he was working on his PC, so I knocked just to get his attention. He spun around in his chair with a smile on his face and welcomed me into his office, offering me a chair. The topic of the production environment for him was not a new one, but this time it was exacerbated by the recent termination of the EMR vendor relationship with the clinic a few weeks earlier. So here he was, back at the center of the infamous paper chase with patient care and the complete encounter documentation process. He was composing an evidence-based algorithm using the Microsoft Notepad application on his PC. His intention with this effort being to install and run a medical decision support system to share best practices with third world countries. While this is an ongoing process for him, my point in sharing this story is to highlight a genuine effort within a less than ideal environment. From my experiences with physicians as friends and clients and even providers of my care, one thing remains true: Physicians are not just doing a job as a physician, they are living a life as one. The best developments in medical care will not come from regulations, but from physicians within clinics. While there is good reason to be aware of the dialogue regarding regulations and other requirements in the healthcare industry, let’s not forget who really has the influence to improve medical care in the clinic everyday.

Do you have an inspiring story to share about a physician you know?

Filed Under: Health Information Technology, Patient Experience

How Social Media Can Still Neglect the Patient

May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Whether the topic involves healthcare social media, patient-centered care, or even the latest TV advertisement promoting the new hospital designed around the patient the most common and obvious missing point is the part where the patient experience starts – reception. Its easy to get distracted by the fascinating tools of social media or the beautiful architecture of the facility when it comes to the patient experience. It’s fair to say that trust between a patient and the physician is a critical part of the nature of care (and those subsequent ‘word of mouth’ referrals), and yet it is unfortunate how many times the foundation of this trust is diminished with the ‘non-clinical’ portion of the patient experience. So while social media, and especially the clinic website, may be an important way to begin engaging patients with information it will also be the bridge right to those same people in reception. The question is: With all of the efforts that physicians (and mid-level providers) must sustain every day to provide individual patient care, how prepared are all of those non-clinical staff members to appropriately participate in the patient experience?

Filed Under: Healthcare Social Media, Patient Experience, Patient Satisfaction

Word of Mouth Affects the Clinic

May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

And the patient is on their way…

So sharing the clinic reputation is placed in the hands of the patient who just came in or called on the phone. The hope that this patient will carry it forward and convince someone new to contact the clinic. What we know about customer stories is that people tend to talk a lot more about the bad experiences they’ve had than the good ones. In the context of both recognizing the patient’s experience and driving the good stories, a quick take on the 5 W’s for the clinic:

Who made the most important impact on the patient? We hope the physician, but what if someone else among the staff is creating their own reputation that upon further review might be classified as ‘non-compliant’ with the physician’s expectations and level of care?

What does the ‘clinic reputation’ and ‘value add’ mean to everyone who either directly or indirectly serves patients of the clinic in any way?

Where are the patients turning for issues such as compliance with a treatment plan, additional guidance, and how much of it involves this clinic?

When the patient has a question, concern, request, testimonial or complaint does everyone on staff know the path for this communication within the clinic?

Why – because medical care is a personal experience for all concerned.

Filed Under: Coordination of Care

Value-Based Patient Outcomes

April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It is an ongoing challenge, how to engage the patient in a way that best suits their specific needs. Some people have suggested that social media tools are the key to patient engagement. While these tools are compelling, in many cases the real problem is what the clinic is trying to accomplish with them. Is it sharing a vignette about a particular condition and the implications on the one’s health? Maybe its sharing patients’ stories? What about sharing important updates? One thing I’ve learned in my experiences is that physicians have a precarious balance to maintain when considering how they will engage in social media while providing personal care to patients in the clinic. For those physicians who are participating in social media community some meaningful way – it’s an impressive addition to any already incredible commitment.

The perception of the patient experience is one that in a conversation among the entire clinic staff, or even friends and neighbors (since everyone is a patient at some time) is in the eye of the beholder. In a conversation this week, a friend shared a thought with me of how great it would be if social media and patient engagement could be as easy as having each patient fill out the next appointment reminder postcard at the end of the visit just like in the dental clinic. Just under six months later, the patient receives a postcard in their own handwriting as a reminder for the next clinic engagement! The truth is that value in the patient experience is nothing without the physician in the clinic. However, there are also so many other staff members on the payroll in the clinic who must have something to add to the patient experience. If they do not have anything to add in this context, then it must be a great opportunity for an immediate reduction in payroll expense. What I know from my experiences is that these staff members are very important to the patient experience. Beyond the roles they fulfill in support of the physicians and the clinical workflow, they are most often the witnesses to a variety of patients’ needs from the mundane to the urgent and important. When I talk to patients about an experience that was well below their expectations, the common complaint is that communication among the physicians and clerical staff just fell short.

So while social media provides some really interesting ways to connect, collaborate and share, it does not replace the need for clear rules of engagement between the entire clinic staff. It sets the expectations for not only what patient engagement means in the clinic, but how it will be executed by every person on staff based on their roles. Patients expect social interaction among all clinic staff, and everyone on staff has an important view of patient outcomes during, after and between visits through their interactions. Recognizing that patient outcomes are in many ways in the eye of the beholder is an important step in developing better ways to capture those perceptions among all of those witnesses among the clinic staff. It’s not a social media campaign, but a philosophy of care campaign with respect for social interaction.

Filed Under: Clinic Awareness, Coordination of Care, Healthcare Social Media, Patient Satisfaction

HIPAA

April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In the spirit of getting back to the basics, a brief reminder of that the one and only “P” in HIPAA represents portability. With the running ‘carrot and the stick’ dialogue about “meaningful use” of EMR and the incentives for its demonstration within the clinic, lets not forget the portability not only of the information but of the patients as well. This portability must mean something to everyone in the clinic every day with every patient. In spite of the hype associated with chasing the “meaningful use” incentive, HIPAA is not just an IT issue with regard to privacy and security of personal health information.

Filed Under: Health Information Technology, Healthcare Industry, Patient Satisfaction

5 Great Reasons Physicians Moderate Tweetchats

April 24, 2012 By 1 Comment

1. Patients tend to have common questions, so there is shared value among attendees.
2. Physicians are there own brand and building more awareness among people is a good thing.
3. Its a great opportunity to answer some of the questions that patients often forget to ask about during an encounter.
4. Its much less expensive than hosting a dinner event.
5. Once information is published on the internet it will continue to find its way among more people long after the tweetchat. So in this case, a ‘viral presence’ from the clinic is a good thing!

Filed Under: Clinic Awareness, Healthcare Social Media

The Social in Media

April 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There is a dialogue going on around the country about how to engage patients in social media. Some of these conversations at the clinic level get started and stop just as quickly as soon as someone mentions HIPAA. Other conversations in the clinic involve one person who takes on the challenge of building the face of the clinic using various social media tools. The interesting common thread from my experiences with these folks in clinics is that this conversation about social media too often looks past the very nature of current communication between all clinic staff and patients. What currently happens with every patient phone inquiry that comes into the clinic? Do we always return messages with the patient’s best interest in mind? Whether its just one person in this role or a team of people, it is a very important starting point to what social media can add to this process.

Filed Under: Coordination of Care, Healthcare Social Media, Patient Satisfaction

Trust & Success

April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The trust between the patient and the physician is one that is clear in the clinic. The nature of medical care requires this trust in diagnosis, guidance and treatment for the patient experience to result in any level of success. But what about the trust between the clinical and clerical staff as it relates to the patient experience? What patients know beyond any doubt is that the majority of communications between the clinic and patient will not be with the physician. These people in clerical roles represent the first point of communication in many different circumstances for the patient before, during and after the clinic visit. So the question is, what would it take to build this trust in the clinic?

One issue involves the common problem of clerical staff retention. What toll has turnover taken on the culture in the clinic? It may be as obvious as a ‘feeling’ that people experience from the time that they arrive in the morning to start each work day. Making a transition from ‘tolerance’ to ‘trust’ among colleagues will make a difference for the entire staff and translate directly into the patient experience as well.

Another concern might be the recognition within the office between “helping the patient in any way that I can” versus “helping the patient in the way that he or she needs it.” This level of trust (or tolerance) among the clinical and clerical staff is often manifested in too many unresolved messages and inquiries from patients. If there is any question about where to begin with a measure of patient satisfaction, start here. It may be as simple as a patient saying, “I know the physician cared and my visit was a good one, but when I called to change an appointment or ask a question about my bill I just felt lost in the process.” What staff know in each of their respective roles in the clinic are the common questions that patients, both first time and ongoing, tend to ask. What every staff member needs to know is how to respond to these inquiries based on their training & skill level, and who else to engage when the question or issue is beyond their influence in the clinic.

Recognizing that patient engagement involves the entire clinic staff will make the difference in changing behaviors about what both patient and staff satisfaction represents in the clinic experience. Building trust among the clinical and clerical staff everyday will solidify the confidence every staff member has in being the “face of the clinic” in precisely the way the patient needs.

Filed Under: Coordination of Care, Healthcare Industry

Why do people choose us?

April 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Is it because the physician’s are members of an independent physicians’ association?

Maybe it’s because of our friendly staff?

Were we the first clinic that they could find when they needed the guidance and care that we provide?

Was it because of the reputation of a particular physician?

Did we respond in a certain way?

It may all matter, and it’s just the beginning of the list. One thing is true about patient engagement – it can happen to anyone in the clinic. Ready or not!

Filed Under: Clinic Awareness, Health Information Technology
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