How to Build Teamwork

Teamwork - one of those concepts that can be hard to implement, but if done effectively creates a level of productivity and efficiency that cannot be matched. The symptoms of this every-man-for-himself mentality include higher levels of turnover, chronic morale problems, higher patient complaints, and lower productivity; all which produce a drag on profit which medical practices today can ill afford.

Developing a staff that is effective, highly functional, and puts practice performance first, is easier said than done. To a large extent, this is due to the fact that a practice a comprised of many small groups of people who work together but perform very different roles. Here are a few tips to get you closer to building that teamwork environment you wished for.

Lead By Example

The first source of teamwork begins and starts from the top down. As practice administrator, you encourage teamwork by modeling good business behavior yourself. There is nothing worse than having someone talk the talk, but not walking it. Teamwork should be approached as a unified front, making it clear to all layers of staff that teamwork is a top priority. 

Positive Reinforcement

Sometimes as administrators we do not see all things happening on the ground. To keep employees accountable to their coworkers, asking each person to highlight or bring to attention things they've witnessed their peers doing in the positive is a great form to reciprocate positive feedback for the work they've done. 

If they receive their evaluation back and they notice they didn't have much positive feedback in one or two of the 10 categories, they might say "I think I do this well, but maybe I could do better." This is meant to be a positive feedback tool to help the employee develop professionally.

Jacks of All Trades

In the quest for better teamwork, the American Medical Association's guide to "Managing the Medical Practice" notes it's also important to cross train your staff to perform multiple jobs. Doing so makes them more valuable to the practice and also gives your employees the opportunity to walk in their coworker's shoes. Train your medical assistants to answer phones, use the computer, check in patients, make appointments, and file charts. The administrative staff should be shown how to take vital signs, chaperone patients to the exam room, schedule lab tests or surgery, and preparing an exam room for the next patient. 

Administrative employees may be a bit harder to cross train with the medical staff, but by doing so they can begin to understand each other's needs and develop an appreciation for the problems that exist on both sides of the invisible line which seems to separate both clinical and administrative personnel. "For fully functioning teams to operate smoothly, employees must understand their own roles and how their roles interact with and affect others." the AMA writes.

Let Them Be Heard

An effective way at getting your staff involved and working together is by empowering them with the tools necessary to effect change. Suggestions can be given to administrators personally or by creating a suggestion box. The practice I work for implemented such a system and included a bonus for the individual who had their idea chosen. Such a system created financial incentive and a motivational reward for the staff to participate. 

The idea behind this is that the people on the floor doing the job are the ones that will come up with the most efficient and effective ideas. Not only will you get great ideas, but you get better buy-in when decisions are occasionally decided from the bottom up instead of top down like a dictatorship. 

Bring out the Best

You can help tap the potential of all your employees by considering their personalities and whether or not they're suited for the job they perform. In many work environments you may find folks whose personality is not conductive to their line of work. You may have a situation where you have a quiet person at the front desk portraying poor customer service while at the same time have an overly extroverted person who can't concentrate on a single task for long stuck in billing and coding. Making the adjustment and swapping positions would bring out the best in both individuals. The outgoing individual would preform better with direct patient contact and the quieter person would probably be happier filing claims all day.

A Few Bad Apples

In every organization there will always be a few who will never be team players. Practice administrators should dismiss them promptly. You can't change people who aren't willing to change and investing time in bad employees is not the road to take. When searching for replacements be sure to screen job candidates carefully, checking references and using personality tests to ensure they fit with your corporate culture. 

Don't forget to also include a 90-day probation period in your employment contracts, giving you the right to terminate employment during that time for any reason. What happens is you are the office manager with high turnover and you hire someone thinking they are the best candidate for the job. Now you have spent considerable amount of time training this individual only to see it is not working out the way you wanted, but it's easier to keep them than to fire them and get behind. What to do? Cut your loss and move on.

One of the benefits of cultivating a functional work environment is that your staff won't tolerate naysayers or under performers. You may call it positive peer pressure but it will forcing less productive employees to step up their game. Those key employees will also be more keen to giving you the feedback needed on new hires and the potential they have.

At the end of the day, your employees may work side by side but it doesn't mean they're playing for the same team. You can help unlock your staff's potential and give your practice a competitive edge by setting a positive example, telling each employee how they contribute to the practice's mission, empowering them to make decisions, hiring the right people and placing them in the right jobs.