Coaching – Balanced Physician

The Balanced Physician – Physician Performance and Physician Well-Being Combined

• 87 percent of physicians are moderately to severly stressed.
• Physician burnout rates fluctuate between 40-60 percent.
• Stress and burnout increase the chance of medical errrors.

What does your organization do to prevent your physicians from burning out and causing unnecessary medical errors?

Stop believing that clinical skills are the only necessary skills of your physician force. They are not Successful physicians have to be excellent clinicians, effective communicators and balanced individuals. Their performance, behavior, and leadership skills determine the well-being of your organization. Without physicians there is no patient care!

Medical schools and CME focus solely on clinical skills. That’s vital. But clinical education is not enough anymore. Clinical skills can ensure a correct diagnosis but not necessarily good bedside manner. Clinical skills can progress research but not staff performance.

Success as physicians requires effective self-management and interpersonal skills, too. Without them, the best clinical skills won’t make a big difference. Most physicians love what they do. They care about their patients. They want to make a difference and they are dedicated to their work. But all this comes with a heavy price.

Physicians struggle with a lot of challenges and the three most persistent ones are that:

1. They are working far harder than they want to.
   Stress and burnout among physicians is a growing problem. They have always been long-hour, hard working professionals but now it affects more and more their quality of patient care, work performance and personal well-being. Burnout rates up to 60%, conflicts with family due to long work hours, frequent on call schedules, addictions, and disruptive behaviors are consequences of their stressful and long work hours. It negatively impacts your patient care.
2. They are facing daily the perfect storm.
   Increasingly complex governmental regulations, healthcare reform and not knowing what impact it will have on them and the way they are practicing medicine; EMR and constant adjustment to the technology, declining reimbursements, increased write-offs due to bad debt and more and more practice operations overhead – just a few of many circumstances that physicians have no control over and have to deal with constantly. It negatively impacts their bedside manner and patience.
3. They need better performance from their staff.
   Physicians are professionals who set high standards on themselves and they set high standards on their staff. Their lack of persuasion and communication skills sometimes drives away high-performing staff members or doesn’t bring the best out of their team. Not only is this draining for them but it is time and money consuming and it cuts in the quality patient care that your organization is dedicated to provide.

Consequently, physicians deal with a lot of issues and they are not equipped to handle them effectively. They cause medical errors, they display disruptive behavior, they affect high turnover of good personnel. Your organization really cannot afford this, from a patient care standpoint and from a financial standpoint!

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There is a better way!

Physicians can’t deal with these challenges by themselves. They are searching for solutions such as:

• Stop feeling so overwhelmed and replace it with a sense of control and clarity.
  Knowing how to control stress, streamline tasks and how to say “no” more often allows them to create the space necessary to be a more compassionate physician, family member and valuable contributor to your facility.
• Keep the enthusiasm and passion for medicine and for their patients.
  The desire to provide high-quality care with some degree of autonomy is a leading reason that physicians stay in the profession. Physicians also want to be perceived as being good at what they do, treat a variety of patients with whom a relationship has been built and be given opportunities to improve their skills. Being overburdened with administrative challenges and too many patients are main factors leading physicians to change careers.
• Be the leaders of a high-performing team.
  Physicians want to work with a staff that is efficient, friendly and quick to solve problems. The solution is being a physician with effective communication and leadership skills, who leaves them feel capable, supported and empowered.

These objectives are actually quite reachable when you offer your physicians a practical and customized program that addresses their challenges and supports them in their goals.

What is the Solution? Invest in your Physicians!
With the Balanced Physician Program – a specialized program that provides effective training combined with personalized coaching

The Balanced Physician program is our highest end program offered to physicians and designed to support them while they are working through the challenges they face at the workplace and to make meaningful improvements that lead to:

• Reduced stress, hence greater job satisfaction, less error rates, turnover and expenses
  The short supply of energy and patience leaves physicians vulnerable to more medical errors which impact their productivity and job satisfaction. Once they know how to control stress effectively (and we don’t talk about stress management here), they will automatically feel more enthused about their work which contributes to better concentration, job satisfaction and reduced expenses (to fix errors and crisis).
• A feeling of being more in control of life and how to expand it
  Before the Balanced Physician program many physicians feel they don’t have many options, and therefore automatically fall into patters of overwork that lead to more stress. As the program progresses, they discover areas where they do have control and how they can make better choices that lead to improved well-being.
• Improved communication and cooperation with staff, peers and family members
  Stress, overwhelm, and exhaustion are the killers to every relationship. What makes this program so unique is that we not only talk about the typical topics that work-life balance programs address, such as stress control, mindfulness and self-care, but we also address skills to communicate more effectively with staff, peers and family. Once physicians know the communication subtleties they automatically free up time because they don’t have to go back and “fix” what they messed up with their impatient and sometimes even improper way of communication.
• A sense of work-life balance and personal well-being
  Work is part of life but not life itself. In this program we will brainstorm ways to restore your work-life balance and to take better care of yourself. After all, your way of living has an impact on your patients and your staff and you want to ensure that you are a role model for healthy and balanced living.
• Improved performance and energy
  When physicians regain control over their lives again, work performance will automatically improve. What takes them x number of minutes right now will take them only a fragment after participation in this program. What they used to do themselves, after the program they have the communication tools to delegate the task effectively to others.
• Focused leadership skill development
  Physicians often do not realize that they are seen as leaders by staff members and for that reason are unaware of the major impact they have on the staff’s attitudes and behavior. Since all physicians are leaders regardless of whether or not they hold a formal leadership role, they will be introduced to basic leadership models, skills and behaviors so that they can maximize their impact on their staff and in their department.

The Balanced Physician program is a program that doesn’t focus on work-life balance even though it is one of the side effects. Instead it focuses on the development of a balanced skill set for physicians that complements and strengthens their clinical skills. The skills that they will master in this program are:

1. Self-Management skills
Many physicians know of self-management as a term that describes patient education, patient behavior and health promotion programs. In this program we address self-management as the prerequisite for physicians’ performance, success and life fulfillment. It is the awareness, behavior, and self-leadership required for quality patient care, efficiency and life balance. Topics such as stress control, time management among others will be covered in this part of the program.

2. Interpersonal skills
Healthcare is not just medical; it is relationship. Physicians’ success is based as much or more on trusting relationships with patients, strong, cooperative relationships with nurses and staff members, and solid relationships with hospital administration as it is on clinical skills. Topics such as communication, leadership and conflict resolution among others will be covered in this part of the program.

Each skill set includes 6 sub-skills and each month they will learn one of these skills in a workshop-like format and implement it through the support of coaching conversations.

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The keys to the program are:

Informative learning – In the live workshops or webinar your physicians will learn 12 skills that will maximize their performance in their practice and allows them to feel more balanced.

Group support and experience exchange – The magic of any improvement or transformation lays in sharing and in collaboration. Your physicians will get to know each other in a “different” way and collaborate about best practices, effective shortcuts and mutual support.

Personalized attention – Your physicians will develop the skills that are most meaningful and useful to them. They get immediate feedback on their actions which helps them master those skills that allow them to become an effective clinician, important staff member, valuable leader and balanced individual.

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What you and your physicians receive with the Balanced Physician Program

The Balanced Physician program is a year-long program for groups up to 12 physicians. They can work in one practice or come from a variety of specialties / departments.

Prior to the program we clearly identify measures for success. Every participant will go through a short orientation conversation and personal assessment to clarify their goals.

Every month they will participate in:

• A 1-hour workshop that can be presented via a webinar or in person
• 1-2 targeted coaching conversations for each physician which occur between workshops to implement the learned skills in their workplace and lives.
• Meetings include assessments and our 170 page Balanced Physician workbook, along with a significant amount of group discussion and exercises.

As a participant of the Balanced Physician program your physicians can expect:

• Regular engaging conversations with peers
• A mix of individual and group exercises
• An accountability structure for their goals
• A fun and interactive professional growth program
• Assignments between sessions to help deepen their learning process.

Is the Balanced Physician Program for you and your physicians?
The Balanced Physician program is a program like no other! If you want to incorporate a program for the physicians in your healthcare organization that addresses the physicians’ personal well-being and professional performance, the Balanced Physician program is THE solution! We will customize the content, the format and the exercises to your physicians and we will guarantee you – this is one of the best investments you will ever make in your physicians!

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So what is next?

If you have gotten this far in the introduction about this program you might be interested in taking the next step. If so, I invite you to contact me for a complimentary Balanced Physician strategy session.

In this session we will explore what challenges your physicians face, what kind of results you would like to see instead and whether this program and its format may be of help or not. Whatever the outcome, you will leave the conversation with more clarity and excitement about what’s truly possible for your physicians.

The conversation will take about an hour and can be done in person or by phone. Simply fill out the contact form below and I will connect with you within the next 24-48 hours. I look forward to speaking with you.

Warmly,

Iris Grimm

Comments or questions are welcome.