A large number of leaders in healthcare agree that staff engagement within a hospital is an essential component for delivering quality patient care, with an empathetic experience, that will result in the best clinical outcomes. Since most of the insurance reimbursements are tied to quality measures, staff engagement has become progressively more essential to healthcare organizations’ bottom line. Amid the competitive landscape and caregiver shortages, organizations are faced with the challenge of vying for the most qualified candidates.
Hospitals with superior quality measures and process enabling technology are often a major draw for high-performing candidates (and patients!). Once hired, the organization must have an engagement program coupled with workflow automation to attract and retain these in-demand team members. A common strategy used to develop and improve staff engagement is Leadership Rounding. Leadership Rounding is staff engagement.
Leadership Rounding is a standardized, evidence-based process that managers at any level of leadership can use to drive efficiencies and quality. This methodology of rounding is a means for leaders to engage and communicate with their staff while in the staff member’s work environments. Leadership Rounding has been proven as an effective strategy that industry leaders wield to nurture and sustain employee engagement. This repeatable process, blended with easy to use technology, provides managers with the platform to connect and communicate with their staff.
Used in conjunction with industry best practices, Leadership Rounding can transform organizations from poor or mediocre to high performing, financially secure healthcare systems. Today we will break down some of the benefits and present the crucial elements in implementing and maintaining a successful leadership rounding program.
Benefits to the Organization
The communication and synergy established with Leadership Rounding are beneficial for both the organization and employee. For a start, Leadership Rounding in hospitals reduces staff turnover and related costs by developing and motivating staff engagement. The deliberate communication produced by Leadership Rounding generates perpetual feedback and a continuous improvement mode of communication. This communication removes barriers to care and promotes a culture of ongoing staff safety, motivation, and environment optimizations.
An equally important benefit is that Leadership Rounding has the same effects for the patient in relation to safety, experience, and quality of care. The operational gains that the organization experiences from enhanced quality scores spill over to favorably impact community reputation and further attract loyal staff – and patients!
Leadership Rounding also provides managers with the opportunity to recognize and reward staff with a high level of performance. The positive recognition reaffirms the type of behaviors the organization would like modeled, and assists in motivating others to do the same. While rounding, leaders collect and use actionable data that is later used to foster both meaningful and personalized interactions with staff.
The purposeful communication improves work safety and cultivates relationships for and between staff within the workplace. As manager-staff relationships build, collaboration begins and creates the environment that employee engagement will thrive in!
Two Key Components to Have in Place
Culture First
To nurture staff engagement, organizations must begin by establishing a culture that supports their mission. Without the right culture in place, leaders will have ongoing, uphill battles to improve staff engagement, quality measures, and value-based reimbursements. Healthcare organizations must first identify the major challenges, outline the incremental goals, and create a process improvement plan that leverages technology.
Leaders will baseline and track current gaps to measure improvements and continue to elevate the processes. With an improvement plan in place, the organization will often take a top-down approach that includes governance and oversight that will improve and sustain a culture that is good for everyone.
Technology Next
Let’s be serious; Paper just doesn’t cut it anymore (see how we did that?). To elevate the process, organizations need the right tools in place, and this includes innovative technology. Healthcare today is not what it was even five years ago.
As patients have become the primary driver of where they go for care, they are increasingly savvy and look for quality, accessibility, efficiency, and non-clinical technology that generates a kind, empathetic experience. For hospitals to seriously compete, they must differentiate themselves to attract loyal patients – and employees. This will not happen by tracking and trending on pen and paper or excel spreadsheets.
Instilling Confidence Using CLARIFIRE HEALTH®
CLARIFIRE HEALTH, process automation software, instills confidence for organizations by displaying critical, actionable data that promotes empathetic communication with evidence that is measured and used to make improvements. CLARIFIRE HEALTH has an innovative and easy to use mobile solution that leaders like to use. With the ability to leverage the most advanced technology, leaders can easily capture and use information that makes doing their jobs easier. Quickly adopted, the CLARIFIRE HEALTH Leadership Rounding solution offers the way to reinvigorate team members, while increasing collaboration and quality.
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