Lee Health CEO Scott Nygaard, MD, MBA to Discuss Physician Engagement at AMGA Annual Conference

If you are planning to attend the AMGA Annual Conference, March 7-10, 2018, join us for a session with Lee Health CEO Scott Nygaard, MD, MBA on Physician Engagement and Establishing a Culture of Collaboration. Read below for Scott’s recent article on what to expect in Phoenix.

Engaging Physician Leaders Is Key to Establishing a Culture of Collaboration

Lee Health CEO Scott Nygaard, MD, MBA

At its core, our industry is grounded in the quality care we provide to our patients. Achieving this, however, requires that we—healthcare leaders across the U.S.—establish our organizations as bedrocks of collaboration and environments that position staff to succeed.

Easier said than done. More broadly, the healthcare industry faces a pressing challenge: how can health systems, hospitals, and medical groups establish a culture of cooperation amidst a landscape of change?

Within our industry, there remain high rates of physician turnover and burnout. We are collectively struggling to define “quality” and reduce variations in care to improve the resulting outcomes across health systems. Moreover, cost accountability measures are inconsistent in our patients’ experiences. These struggles, and more, are all symptoms of a cultural weakness. This weakness affects physicians and our healthcare systems and sets organizations up for failure.

However, as I’ve learned from my own experiences and from listening to colleagues about their challenges, there are ways to shift organizational culture and get on a more productive path. Engaging clinical leaders is crucial to transforming organizational culture, and positioning us all on track to success.

At Lee Health, we’ve worked to employ new methods to elevate physicians as frontline partners in driving our organization forward. By developing a “physician engagement roadmap,” we’ve successfully identified residual gaps in our organizational culture and developed tailored approaches to improving communications among providers, staff, and patients as we transition to value-based care and streamline our clinical workflow. And it works.

With a deliberate, disciplined and multipronged approach to foster culture transformation, we’ve seen tangible improvements in physicians’ ability to lead change and foster innovation. Indeed, as a healthcare provider with more than 11,000 employees, 600 employed providers, and 4000 volunteers on staff, transforming culture has been no simple task. It takes time to achieve.

During AMGA’s upcoming 2018 conference, my colleagues and I will lead a session to dive into the elements that have equipped us to implement cultural change and discuss what can empower you to establish collaborative and engaging work environments. Together, we’ll address symptoms of disengagement affecting physicians and identify culture gaps. We’ll review the fundamentals of a practical roadmap to transforming workplace culture, and we’ll walk through best practices and processes for engaging dyad and triad leadership teams.

The uncertain landscape of health care will present new challenges, but having a stable culture in which physicians are engaged will undoubtedly allow us respond more effectively and with greater cohesion. A workplace environment in which leadership and staff feel valued trickles down to affect patients’ experiences and, ultimately, the delivery of cost-effective care. I hope our approach at Lee Health will inspire you as your organization, like our industry as a whole, moves toward unlocking its full potential.

I look forward to sharing my experience at the AMGA conference in March. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to shoot me a message if you want to connect.