To address any or all of the three major challenges facing today's healthcare organizations - cost efficiencies, improved outcomes and patient satisfaction - executives should enlist the active participation and support of the organization's physicians.
Hospitals and physicians are establishing various types of collaborative entities, PR and marketing professionals from coast to coast report that physician-hospital relationships (PHRs) still are far from collegial and trusting.
"We've set up this elaborate operating arrangement and the lawyers are moving ahead with formalizing a PHO," said one corporate communications VP, "but it's still painfully obvious that the doctors don't trust the hospital administration, and the CEO and COO don't like the physician leaders. I don't know how we're going to really work together once the papers are signed."
Physicians note that they hear a lot of talk about better communications and stronger relationships, but as one medical staff president put it, "they sure don't walk that talk - the CEO still holds his cards close to his chest, makes decisions, and then 'informs' the executive committee. He thinks that's communicating."
Situations like these appear to be more the rule than the exception. This is particularly troublesome given the fact that an integrated healthcare organization's success depends in great measure on physician involvement and leadership.
The foundation of that involvement and leadership begins with effective communications - making that a critical responsibility for PR and marketing executives.
Building Communications on Trust
There is one subject on which all parties agree - trust must be the basis of any effective communications and relationship-building effort. Trust should start at the top with the CEO setting the tone for all his or her administrative staff. If members of the management team deal with physicians in an adversarial way, this can undercut the CEO's best efforts.
If a trusting relationship exists, there are a number of ways in which communications between physicians and hospitals can be improved:
- Face-to-face communications should be a major part of any program. Meetings - especially in small to medium-sized groups where plenty of interaction can take place - are more personal and effective at building a trusting relationship than any other tactic.
- Asking for input is crucial, rather than telling physicians what's already been decided. While CEOs and boards of trustees often balk at the concept of giving physicians "control" over decision-making, research has found that when doctors are involved in the decision-making process they feel less slighted. One physician surveyed summed it up: "We don't want to have total power, since the hospital board really has to make the final decision. What we do want is to be involved in the process, from day one, getting a chance to have our ideas heard and seriously considered and getting the chance to react to programs and proposals as they evolve."
- Beyond meetings, there's no one single communications tactic that can work as a solo effort. Print vehicles are useful for spelling out detailed information; e-mail is good for speed (providing that doctors actually read their e-mail); and videos can add emotion or immediacy. The simplest, most basic tactics are often most effective - a personal letter delivered via FAX or messenger, "town meetings" with an open agenda, etc.
- "Taking the pulse" of the medical staff should be a routine and ongoing effort. In addition to formalized surveys (via phone or personal interview), research methods should include informal information-gathering by the PR and communications staff, aimed both at monitoring the effectiveness of communications efforts and at early identification of any emerging concerns or problems.
Creating an effective physician communications program is one of the most difficult challenges a PR professional can face, because physicians are a notoriously difficult to reach audience (short on time, patience and, often, interest in the information being sent).
But given the essential role that physicians must play in developing a successful health care organization, it's a challenge that must be addressed and managed as part of any comprehensive marketing and communications program.
Kathy Lewton is director of the National Health Care Practice at Porter Novelli in Chicago. She is author of Public Relations in Health Care: A Guide For Professionals. She can be reached at 312/856-8888 or email at [email protected].
PHR Communication Barriers
The growing trend of physician-hospital relationships (PHR) is adding a new layer of communications challenges for PR and marketing executives. The biggies include:
- CEOs and physician leaders having divergent views on the effectiveness of hospital-doctor communications.
- CEOs tend to prefer letters, phone calls or visits from physician representatives, while doctors say personal meetings involving physicians and hospital executives are most effective.
- PR and communications directors are in similarly different camps concerning effective communications tactics, PR professionals prefer medical staff meetings while physicians find physician advisory boards an ideal communications channel.
Source: Kathy Lewton, Porter Novelli