Getting Your Physician Strategy
Off to a Healthy Start
By Brenda Beukelman, MBA
Let’s set the stage: The physician strategy has been long in development. It started long ago with the medical staff development plan and understanding of the external market. Now, you want to go prime time within your organization, sharing the vision that has been crafted for a strong, effective physician response to market challenges. However, before you set foot out of your office door, you would be wise to take time to plan your communication strategy, to securing buy-in to this oh-so-important strategy.
Why the cautionary note? While all organizational strategies require good communication, the physician strategy is one to handle with extra care. In comparison to other strategic efforts, the physician strategy has the greatest opportunity to impact on your revenue streams, your reputation with providers, and build loyalty.
Leadership does not begin with a vision. It begins with getting people to confront the brutal facts, yet not to lose faith, and to act on the implications.
Jim Collins, Good to Great
Looking at Jim Collin’s quote reminds us of the more uncomfortable side with gaining support for a strategy. We could wish the communication would be met with smiles, peace, and harmony all around. But what is with this business of “confronting brutal facts” or “act on implementations”? That doesn’t sound like a good time. It sounds like tension-filled meetings, some passive aggressive behavior, and lots of undercurrents in conversations. Ah, the dark sides of strategy work.
Here are a few tips and techniques to consider when you begin to build support for your physician relations strategy within the organization.
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Be honest, direct, and to the point. Leave the flowery words and images to Hallmark. Physicians may meet you and the strategy with veiled (or open) suspicion, and will be more likely think there is a hidden message somewhere buried in heavy jargon, industry talk, or long, drawn out narratives.
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Keep your physician allies close, your detractors even closer. This means spending a little more time and energy with those you might rather not. They may expect you to provide them with a cursory overview of the plan, but may be pleasantly surprised you are making an extra effort to reach out to them.
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How happy is your medical staff? A study done by Thomas Jefferson University and the Bard Group found a strong correlation between medical staff cohesion and physician support for organizational initiatives. If you know your medical staff has existing tension between them, take this into consideration when rolling out your plan. Be sensitive to the sequencing of communicating to the groups within the medical staff.
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Find your early adaptors within the medical staff. Enlist them in communicating your strategy along side of you, translating if necessary, the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) factor. Having an ally is important here to minimize conspiracy theories of what they may extrapolate for partially understood administrative messages.
Your physician strategy is a valuable asset to your organization. Taking the extra step to develop your communications strategy may make all the difference to the success of the physician strategy, harmony within the medical staff, and ultimately, your bottom line.
