Best Practices

Learning is Forever: Turn Staff Into Stars

By Allan Walker

Physicians as a whole are an ambitious, intellectual group, dedicated to learning, continuing education and personal and professional growth. The innate thirst for knowledge that drives individuals to embark on the long, arduous road to become a physician runs deep and rarely burns out. Graduation or mastery of a technique or procedure is never the end. To this elite and motivated group, learning is forever.

While most successful physicians spend considerable time, effort and resources to stay on top of their game, it does not automatically follow that they embrace the same “forever” learning opportunities for their staff. However, they should. The enduring success of any practice is directly dependent on its staff. Even if the medical staff is the best in the market — impeccably trained in the latest techniques and using state-of-the-art equipment in a modern, efficient facility — it will only be as good as the staff allows it to be.

A motivated, knowledgeable staff can help take a practice to the top of the profession, whereas a dysfunctional, ill-trained support team can spell economic and professional disaster. How well staff performs can be the difference between success and failure.

While every effort certainly should be made to discover the “best” employees available during the search process, it is important to understand that a staff is comprised of unique individuals with varying strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, some staffers will bloom while others will wilt. But physician owners will never know which team members are the stars-in-waiting without providing everyone an equal opportunity to learn.

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What to Do

To encourage learning in your practice, do the following:

Champion the cause: Be a living, breathing, walking champion of learning. Give it top-of-mind status in your practice and make it obvious. Discuss the joy you get out of learning whenever possible. Give a brief update about what you learned at a recent meeting or training session and ask others to do the same.

Make learning an important part of your personal and professional mission statement. You goal is to make everyone around you better, which is exactly how your practice becomes better.

Plan for success: Your annual planning process should include a high-level discussion on overall learning opportunities, options and objectives. Failing to do so will leave a huge hole in any meaningful SWOT analysis, turning potential strengths and opportunities into threats and weaknesses.

Find the funds: Practice budgets are rightfully tighter and more scrutinized than in the past, but learning needs a permanent spot in the annual operating budget. With the continued growth of social media and the internet, learning dollars can be stretched further by cost-conscious managers willing to do basic research.

Publicize opportunities: Have someone on your management team look for learning options that fit with individual goals, objectives and needs. While there rightfully will be limits on options that can or should be approved, staff members must be encouraged to voice their learning needs and desires.

Track results: Today's economy mandates you maximize the value of any expenditure. You need to know if you are spending your education dollars in the right place. Ask staff to provide a brief written or verbal report following each learning opportunity. Encourage staff to immediately apply what they learned to their everyday job functions.

Celebrate: Learning success needs to be publically recognized. Celebrations do not need to be expensive or elaborate. To the contrary, recognition is frequently what leaning participants want. A brief congratulatory email (with copies to appropriate staff ) is often sufficient, as is notification in a regular newsletter or staff meeting.

Never Stop Learning

Successful practices never stop learning. To attain and maintain “best-practice” status in today's tough business climate, astute physician owners need to be strong advocates of staff learning. Aspire to make your practice a learning leader and, ultimately, enjoy the thought that no staff anywhere is better prepared to meet the needs of its customers. OM

Allan Walker is director of publication services for BSM Consulting, an internationally recognized health care consulting firm. For more information and resources, visit www.bsmcafe.com.