Not every physician private practice can easily create a positive and forward-looking culture. It takes strategic leadership and insightful strategies to develop a cohesive and efficient team and guide it through change.
Physician practice owners wear multiple hats—as clinical and management leaders, and as chief strategists—to ensure that the needs of patients and team members are met by increasing practice efficiencies, improving patient care and enhancing professional satisfaction. Physician burnout adds urgency to making the right choices for your practice, as the causes and remedies of physician burnout are strongly linked to workplace factors.
The AMA offers the resources and support physicians need to start and sustain success on the path to private practice.
Guidance physicians need can be found, for example, among the resources collected in the AMA STEPS Forward® collection of more than 50 toolkits that offer actionable, expert-driven strategies and insights supported by practical resources and tools.
Four of these toolkits, detailed in this article, are foundational for physician leaders who are starting their own practice or who haven’t yet focused on organizational culture. They also are applicable to physician leaders in a broad variety of practice settings regardless of ownership status.
The AMA is inviting resident, early and midcareer physicians to register for the AMA Independent Practice Accelerator Workshop. This two-day, in-person event is designed for physicians exploring the transition to private practice, early-stage practice owners seeking to strengthen their foundation, physicians who are ready to reclaim control of their medical careers, and physicians looking to build a sustainable, patient-focused practice.
The workshop will be held at the AMA’s Chicago headquarters Sept. 11–12 and will combine interactive sessions and expert presentations with practical, hands-on activities designed for immediate, real-world application. Enrollment is limited to 60 participants, and spots are available on a first-come, first-served basis. AMA members receive a discounted registration fee. The registration deadline is Aug. 27. Learn more and register now.
First, decide where you want to go
The AMA STEPS Forward toolkit “Change Management and Organizational Development” addresses how to enhance organizational efficiency and effectiveness to create an optimized practice environment. Here are the key steps.
Perform a practice assessment. This includes answering two critical questions: Where are we now? And where are we going? Then look at finances, personnel, quality metrics and IT.
Develop and share a vision for your practice. Key questions to ask include: What are you really trying to accomplish? What do you want to be known for? And what are your goals regarding patient care, efficient workflow, a team approach to care, practice vitality, and a positive work environment? It is often helpful to include physicians, team members, and patient advisors in creating this organizational vision, the toolkit notes.
Designate and train your change team. One of the most important steps is identifying a small team—typically just three or four individuals—to take on the responsibility of managing and monitoring change.
Document your progress with a project management approach. This ensures all the project elements progress on time and in sync.
Design systematic and sustainable changes. The human tendency is to fix immediate issues, yet one of the hallmarks of great organizations is looking at systematic solutions to reduce errors and poor results over the long term.
A companion toolkit, “Change Initiatives: Produce Meaningful, Sustainable Change,” provides a simple and effective framework to prioritize the right change opportunity for your practice. The first step is to determine whether it will benefit those who deliver care. The next two steps focus on sustainability: determining the benefits for patient care and identifying the resources needed to support the change.
Then add long-term vision
A critical factor in whether your vision will be achieved rests with the practice’s culture. The toolkit “Team Culture: Strengthen Team Cohesion and Engagement” defines organizational culture as “a set of underlying rules and beliefs that determine how your team interacts with patients and each other.” A healthy, engaged and positive team culture is essential even when change is not in the plans. Here are some key steps to developing strong team culture.
Diagnose the state of your team culture. Surveys are a great tool to gauge the health of your team culture, the toilet notes, but never used them to blame or punish any individual or group. And once surveys are complete, be sure to share the results with the entire practice.
Discuss the results and brainstorm possible improvements. This includes following the basic rules of brainstorming—such as combining and building on the ideas of others—choosing a brainstorming approach that suits your practice, categorizing suggestions to create focus and inviting the group to choose ideas to pilot.
Create a team compact. This document details how team members should treat each other. The toolkit provides customizable sample templates with principles for being a good teammate and cultivating positive contributions to team culture.
Create opportunities for team communication throughout the day. This step includes guidance on how co-location, morning huddles, warm handoffs, end-of-day debriefs and weekly team meetings can strengthen relationships and help build positive team culture.
Meet regularly. This can improve relationships and productivity while emphasizing the importance of teamwork.
A related toolkit, “Appreciative Inquiry: Ask 'What Went Well' to Foster Positive Organizational Culture,” will help you identify what is going well, build a sense of optimism and encourage collaboration. Simple tactics—such as sharing positive stories—can change the team’s mindset to focus on what is functioning smoothly, rather than fixating only on what has gone wrong.
AMA STEPS Forward offers real-world solutions to common challenges in health care today. STEPS Forward is part of the AMA Ed Hub™, an online platform that consolidates all the high-quality CME, maintenance of certification, and educational content you need—in one place—with activities relevant to you, automated credit tracking, and reporting for some state and specialty boards.
