Dive Brief:
- Just 20% of physicians are actively engaged with their healthcare institutions and likely to go above and beyond their jobs, according to survey results released Tuesday by athenahealth.
- However, the likelihood for engaged physicians rises when an organization is led by other physicians—32% versus 8% for entities that aren’t physician-led.
- The survey, conducted via Epocrates, included more than 2,000 physicians nationwide.
Dive Insight:
Ownership also influences physician engagement, the survey shows, with physician-owned medical groups hitting 32% engagement, compared with 17% for health system-owned practices and 14% for hospital-owned groups.
Athenahealth chose to check the pulse of the “overall health of healthcare” at a time when physician morale is low and burnout rates on the rise, said Jessica Sweeny-Platt, executive director for physician performance research at the Watertown, MA-based EHR vendor.
“We know that across all other service industries, staff engagement is critical to driving outcomes that the organization cares most about: customer satisfaction, and the resulting profits that come from a highly loyal customer based,” Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger said in a release. “This survey highlights that these same patterns are holding true in healthcare, and represents the beginning of a much needed analysis as to how healthcare organizations can intentionally design themselves to prosper through this highly uncertain, very disruptive moment in the industry’s history."
Other findings from the survey:
- While less than half of doctors reported being satisfied or very satisfied with leadership overall, 74% of engaged physicians were very satisfied with leadership;
- Trust in leadership and a belief that the organization honors its commitments engenders more engagement, and strong leadership requires communication skills and regular feedback; and
- Physicians who feel their facility fosters high-quality care are four times more likely to be engaged than physicians overall.