As the practice manager, you’re responsible for the team that is essential to the success of your medical practice. How can you motivate your medical staff to ensure optimal patient care?
Although health care staff face unique challenges around billing, complex medical technologies, and patient care, the same employee motivation strategies used in other businesses can be applied to your team. While many employers assume that incentives like higher pay and perks are strategies to get employees to work harder, Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School explains that although these external “hygiene factors” can certainly prevent people from hating their jobs, they aren’t enough to make people love their jobs.
If you want to truly inspire your staff, you need to tap into intrinsic motivators, such as having challenging projects, receiving recognition, having responsibility, and achieving personal growth. Here are some strategies:
1. Invite a team member to lead a new project. Some of Rendia’s most successful practices designate a “Rendia Champion” – a staff member who is responsible for implementing and maintaining the patient education software in the practice.
2. Hold regular all-staff meetings, where each employee contributes an idea to improve the practice. Then, make that person responsible for organizing committees to make it happen.
3. Acknowledge progress. It can come in the form of a staff-wide email with quarterly statistics, or by simply saying “thank you.” No matter how you do it, make sure to recognize the people going above and beyond.
The beauty of working in health care is the potential to improve people’s lives. Keep your staff reminded of the big picture, and help empower them to improve patient care in their role. One way to make your employee’s lives easier is to keep patients engaged while they wait during their visit. Wait time is usually the biggest headache for both patients and staff, so why not take advantage of wait time to share valuable health information with patients?
That’s why we’ve created new waiting room health videos this month: Because when patients are happy, your staff is happy too.
Lettuce do you a favor
Encourage patients to “go green” and eat their veggies for better health. Play our latest vignette, “Eat Your Leafy Greens” while patients wait to convey the benefits of these nutrient all-stars. We appreciate Dr. Craig Sultan and Sandra Sultan of The Eye Works Optometry for suggesting this healthy topic.
We recommend: posting on social media or playing in the waiting room
Fit to quit
Use waiting time to promote healthy behaviors to your patients. Rather than rattling off the number of chemicals in each cigarette, we took a different approach with this vignette. In “Benefits of Quitting Smoking” we explain how the benefits of quitting tobacco start immediately, and some strategies to find support and success.
Best for: motivating patients while they wait and posting on social media
Name the anatomy
Our latest trivia vignette describes facts about a body system to test patients’ knowledge of anatomy. Play, “Trivia: Body System” while your patients wait.
We recommend: adding to your waiting room playlist or sharing on social media
Tell patients: “Raise your hands!”
If you’re playing Rendia content in your waiting room (if you aren’t, why not?!), your patients might be wondering if they are candidates for certain offerings. That’s why we made this small vignette, “For More Information, Ask Us Today!” It’s the first step to starting the conversation about treatment options. Thanks to Lacey Mielcarek of Mielcarek Eye Center for suggesting this piece.
Best for: Your waiting room, right after a video about a product or service your practice offers
You spoke out and Rendia listened. Due to high demand, we have released a free downloadable resource to help you hire and retain the best staff for your practice