30 Days into the Healthcare Field...

After several years in the retail industry and copious amounts of energy drinks and 80 hour weeks, I made a transition I, at the time, felt would be a considerable change. I moved from retail to healthcare. And as I ponder my first 30 days in the medical clinic, I have come to a confounding realization: Clinics are very similar to retail stores.

If you change terminologies here and there, most of the guiding principles are parallel. So here is the 30 day old wisdom nugget: Ultimately, success is dependent upon the quality of your people. Let me say that one more time. Ultimately, success is dependent upon the quality of your people.

Over the past weeks I have been showered with articles, periodicals and other reading to peruse through and familiarize myself with the industry. Many articles concentrate on margins and rising costs with fewer margin dollars to be gleaned from the communities in which the clinics call home. Many articles suggest that breaking even is a victory. I find it quite puzzling actually. And yet, the situation is eerily familiar.

How can one clinic of same size and panels with similar access and equal number of physician FTEs succeed while another fails? Is it location? Is it price? What is it?

Location doesn’t come into play as much as you might think. Easy locations to get to help but is rarely shown on surveys as a reason someone is leaving your clinic or doesn’t want to join. Price has a low register on the surveys as well. It is almost to the point to where most medical satisfaction surveys I have run across, in our system at least, don’t even ask about price fairness and competitive shopping. So what is it?

People. The people in your clinic determine your successes. From the business office clerks to the patient service representatives to the physicians and nurses actually healing the hurting, these people determine the clinic’s success. Never underestimate the power of one person no matter their yearly take-home pay.

My family’s Primary Care Physician was located about 15 miles from our home in Central Texas when we moved in 2005. We enjoyed our interactions with her and felt she was more than just a physician but also a friend. We didn’t mind the drive or the hard to get to location. She had been our doctor through many tough bouts of illness with my son and wife over about a three year period when we left her. She did nothing wrong but someone in her clinic did. I still feel ill about it.

Since we began going to that clinic, there was a woman at the front desk of the clinic that did check-ins and scheduled appointments who seemed annoyed with me. Not only me but my family. She never smiled. She never said hello. She was rude in person and on the phone. Despite being in the clinic at least monthly if not bi-weekly, she acted like she didn’t know us and didn’t care to. Finally my curiosity got the better of me and I started watching her interactions with all the customers. Horrid!

If I had run my retail store with that level of customer interaction we would have been closed down in a week! Yet it seemed she and the management were obliged to do nothing more than they had to. The experience of a visit or phone call was too awful to endure any longer and we switched. We didn’t leave because of the doctor. In fact we loved the doctor. We left because the overall experience was bad. Just one bad apple…

You can guess where this is going by now. It is now, more than ever, an experience based society. Every interaction is looked at with discerning eyes. An expectation has been set for good and bad service in our patient’s lives based on their experiences either with your clinic, one in your system or a competitor. Even more frightening, they create new measuring factors every day at restaurants, malls and repair shops.

How do we create an environment of good employees? The process starts with hiring. Multiple interviews and peer group interviews will often quell emotional hiring. Some people are great performers in interviews and then become the bad apple just weeks later. Multiple facings with varied groups can weed most of these people out. The people you do hire, train them with specific employees. Put them with your best employees to learn their habits, not just who is available that day.

Know your employees. Talk to them often and not just about the workplace. Learn their names and interests. Don’t be the leader who rules from a golden tower on high. Come down to the fields and meet the workers. Maybe even help them pull weeds now and again.

Ask your employees the “How would you…” questions. Asking for ways to improve their day to day work improves morale. Maybe it’s as easy as a new soda machine or a different keyboard at their workstation. And now that you have that feedback, whenever possible, show them you value their feedback by following through on feasible requests. Nothing goes further to better an employee than a grasped sense of value.
Teach them why we are here through your words and your actions. We tell them to be courteous at all times, to be friendly and help out our patients and guests. If we as leaders don’t emulate those behaviors, why should they?

Employees, who feel valued, respected, listened to and who have a good environment are happier at work. Happier employees smile more, are more eager to help and create a better experience for our patients and guests as well as their coworkers.

Better experiences create loyalty, word of mouth advertising and continued success. It becomes a question of “How can we fit in more patients?” rather than “How can we get more patients?” When we reach that point, profitability is an end result.