Healthcare Leaders - 3 Questions on Physician Wellbeing

Posted by Dike Drummond MD

three-questions-healthcare-leaders-physician-wellbeing_opt300WThese 3 Questions for Senior Healthcare Leaders will reveal their opinions on the importance of Physician Wellbeing.

Sometimes it is darn difficult to tell whether your leaders understand and/or care about the stresses you are under.

  • The impact of COVID-19 - either blowing up or shutting down your practice.
  • The pandemic induced losses of 2020 Q2 forcing you to take a pay cut and laying off your essential support staff.
  • The daily death by a thousand EMR clicks and keystrokes.
  • The weekly struggle to carve out some meaning from your practice whirlwind and build in some family time and life balance. 

If you can catch your CMO or CEO in a quiet moment, here are three questions that will reveal how they view your professional quality of life.

Before you begin: 
A key to your research here is to ask each question and then commit to silence as you wait for a response. Do not break the silence. You ask a question and wait for as long as it takes for THEM to speak next. Ready?


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physician-leadership-question-one-regarding-physician-wellbeingQUESTION ONE:

1) What role do you believe the health and wellbeing of our physicians plays in the quality of the care they provide?

Follow up with:
1) a: Do you think the health and wellbeing of our physicians will be more or less important in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic?


physician-leadership-question-two-regarding-physician-burnoutQUESTION TWO:

2) How much did our organization invest in the direct support of physician / provider wellbeing this year?

2) a: How much is in next year's budget?

NOTE:
I suspect the answer to this question will be zero or close to zero on both counts. If your organization is actually spending money to promote physician wellbeing, don't stop there. Please ask questions 2) b: and 3) a: below

No matter what, an appropriate quick follow up is this one:
2) b: I don't have this number on the tip of my tongue; how much did we spend last year on EMR software and support?


physician-leadership-question-three-regarding-physician-wellbeingQUESTION THREE:

3) Why are we NOT INVESTING in the health and wellbeing of your physicians / providers?

If your organization did spend on efforts to support physician wellness, this question can become:
3) a: How are we measuring the impact of that investment and did we move the needle?

 

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT:

  • What do you imagine the answers to those questions are in your organization? Please commit to asking your leaders, then come back to leave us a comment on what they told you. 

  • If you actually asked a C-Suite Leader in your organization these three questions - what were their responses?

  • What are the odds you would get labeled "disruptive" if you stood up and asked these questions at your holiday annual medical staff meeting?

 

 

Tags: Physician Leadership, stop physician burnout