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Wowing Physician Splitters
with CEO Garry Gause, Brookwood Medical Center, Birmingham AL |
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t Brookwood Medical Center, a 576-bed tertiary care center located in the
highly competitive marketplace of Birmingham, AL, physician retention is high |
(98.3%). Patients give high marks on the HCAHPS survey as well, with a score of 89% of patients surveyed who responded “always” to the composite question on doctor communication. |
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Laying the Groundwork
In 2002, led by President and CEO Garry Gause, the leadership team recognized the need to grow physician loyalty and volumes by building closer relationships with the medical staff. In response, Brookwood debuted a new Medical Professional Services (MPS) Department. Through a three-tiered communication strategy to re-recruiting physicians, MPS has since grown physician loyalty, incremental volume growth, and physician satisfaction. |
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| Brookwood recognizes physicians have a choice in their referrals, as they are surrounded by quality organizations in the Birmingham area. Physicians who refer Brookwood 80% of their business are visited monthly, while those that refer 50-60% of their business are visited three times per month to ensure their practice needs are being met in a timely manner. Visits are made to all physicians who refer fewer than 40% of their patients on a quarterly or “as needed” basis as well. Volumes are tracked and visit frequency correlates with increasing volume. |
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| The goals of the visits are threefold: First, to communicate quality and improvement initiatives and results. Secondly, to address the operational support needs of practice administrators and their diagnostic scheduling staff (including regular reviews of practice operations and financial reports.) And finally, to serve as a liaison to all hospital departments. The MPS department also keeps in regular contact with physicians and their office staff to ensure they are up-to-date on critical regulatory and compliance issues that impact their practice as well as provider-related services. |
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Increasing Collaboration
In addition to physician visits, the MPS Department also uses a comprehensive approach to increase collaboration among physicians who split their referrals. These include:
- Training for physician practice administrators with a focus on practice-specific and operational issues that impact the practice (e.g., hospital operations, admission process, diagnostic/surgical scheduling) as well as updates on global issues like insurance payers;
- Product line assessments to facilitate direct medical staff feedback to a non-biased third party regarding major facility investments;
- Product line focus groups to evaluate initiatives and best practices to secure and differentiate Brookwood as the market leader within its service area;
- New medical staff orientation with a customized agenda including field visitations. Brookwood actively cultivates relationships by introducing new medical staff to key sub specialists, referral sources, and hospital department staff;
- Daily patient rounding by unit directors ensures effective communication among patients, physicians and staff and identifies real-time concerns;
- Physician resource center (PRC) provides a confidential area to relax, discuss patients, seek consultation and advice. The PRC also houses a dining room, medical library, electronic surgical scheduling board and exercise room;
- Physician hot line with direct access to senior leadership hardwires complaint resolution in a timely manner, especially regarding safety or efficiency issues;
- In the spirit of transparency, a closed loop feedback process uses multiple feedback channels for results from the annual physician satisfaction survey. These include a quarterly ”telegram” sharing updates and follow through on identified priority areas.
- Chief of staff rounds with the CNO weekly to identify barriers to the patient/physician experience and reports out at medical executive and board of directors meetings. This includes sharing recognition of high-performing units with the medical staff to demonstrate appreciation.
“We have witnessed consistent growth and loyalty among both our active and courtesy medical staff since the inception of MPS, with nearly 4200 physician visits in 2007,” notes Bill Brodie, Administrative Director of Medical Professional Services. “Our physician satisfaction continues to mirror the growth of our medical staff and demonstrates strong ROI on investing physicians.”
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Garry Gause is president and CEO of 586-bed Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham, AL. He also currently serves on the board of the Alabama Hospital Association. |
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