Healthcare Practice: A Team Effort
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Top of the 11th inning of a 0-0 softball game. It’s been a pitchers game thus far, a no hitter for both Florida State and South Florida in the regional college play-offs. Almost casually the bases are loaded. A mediocre hitter (3 RBIs all year) comes to the plate and smacks one to the middle of left field and two runs are scored. In the bottom of the 11th, that same hitter playing right field catches a line drive ending the inning and the game.
The most important task of a healthcare practice leader is putting together the right team at the right time to reflect the goals, strategies and culture of the organization. This is no less true in healthcare.
Your healthcare practice is a team of skilled professionals who together deliver quality care to all patients and make a profit for the practice. Or is it?
The decision for selecting the team that will reflect the providers’ goals is not an easy or quick task. Finding the right people to perform the various functions within the practice must first of all be defined. Too often, hiring practices within practices revolve around who the providers know not necessarily who is the best suited.
When your practice has an urgent need for a particular employee, a rushed decision to fill the spot is often a regretted one. The warm body theory of filling positions is never the way to hire and most often results in failure.
The reality is that every team member plays an important role in your practice. Whether they are the best and brightest or the mediocre who has the capacity to rise the occasion when asked is largely a function of leadership. That’s right; leadership!
Building team skills, teaching core values, expecting quality performance then allowing the person to fulfill your expectation is also a function of leadership.
Take a look at the team in your practices. Is it the right collection of skills, energy and competence? Does it together deliver the quality patient care you expect? Do you have a good cross-section of team members who together deliver the success your practice needs to survive these stressful times?
The softball team that won the game had the league’s most valuable player on it, but the player that made the difference was a good team player who literally stepped up to the plate when the coach asked her. What more can a coach or leader ask?
