Improving Physician Relations

Having a deep and profound understanding of your physicians is an essential component of any healthcare system’s success. The Journal of the American Medical Association published the Doctors Ezekiel and Linda Emmanuel’s research in which they described four types of patient-physician relationships. Understanding how physicians view their interactions with patients may help you understand them. The four relationship types are:

• Paternalism – where the physician has the greatest degree of control
• Consumerism – where the patient has the greatest degree of control
• Mutuality – where the patient and the physician work together
• Default – where neither the patient nor the physician is engaged in the relationship, usually meaning the end of the relationship

One way to obtain a handle on your team’s likelihood of having and/or developing and sustaining a healthy, productive relationship with members of your medical staff is to measure their knowledge of certain key components.  The Hospital-Physician Relationship Assessment is one way to do this.  The assessment is a subjective measurement of your management team’s knowledge of physicians as a group, as individuals, formal communication practices, informal communication practices, the hospital’s culture clarity, physician support for hospital activities, serving your physicians, and respect and communication. These elements have been measured as a starting point for where the organization may need to focus development efforts to improve the hospital-medical staff relationship. The complete assessment is included in volume 2 to the book and on the resource CD.

According to Jerry Porras and Jim Collins in Built to Last, organizational values, vision and mission statements (VVMS) are a key determinant of success.  Your VVMS is your road map to where you are taking your organization and how you will get there. And, the more managers, vendors, investors, and in the case of hospitals, physicians, who know, understand, and believe in your VVMS, the more likely the organization will be to achieve them.  The communication and validation of your VVMS should be an ongoing activity, not just something that’s posted on your Web site and in the lobby.  It’s a dynamic, living statement about the contributions your organization is making and will continue to make. Entire compendiums are dedicated to explaining and developing the VVMS. The focus of this book will be to tie in the VVMS to the hospital’s relationship with your medical staff. And, ultimately, to leverage that relationship so that the highest quality clinical documentation in every patient record is the starting point upon which you and your medical staff can build greater achievements together – consistent with the organization’s vision and mission.