Talk:Physician retention

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HMC Summary of iConference: Physician Retention 6/05/06

The conversation in this call was based on why physician retention is important and how to slow turnover rates. Clients agreed that physician retention is tricky in light of the age/diversity issue. Currently physicians are of two separate classes that expect different things from their career. While baby boomer physicians like to have nice libraries with leather chairs, large social gatherings, off-site CMEs, and expect their medical staff to behave in a particular way, younger physicians expect more digitized online resources and networks, localized CMEs, and convenient working hours so they can spend time with family. In terms of incentives, physicians are normally looking for time off rather than money. It seems as though the paradigm for physician retention is changing.

How does one build physician loyalty to the hospital. Both Floyd Medical Center in Georgia and Franklin Medical Center in Massachusetts have struggled with this issue and have found some success in their endeavors. At Floyd, the group recognized the physician wants two things: they want the hospital staff to take good care of the physician's patients and not to waste the physician's time. Thus, they built Physician database where medical staff can record conversations they have with physicians to their palm pilot which are automatically stored into a database. This allows administrators to capture physcian concerns during hallway conversations.

Floyd also recognized that providing the physician ownership of their OR is key. This medical center has recently built a state of the art OR where they had their physicians pick instruments and give input into what they wanted to see architecturally in the building. This kind of ownership of a space builds loyalty. Both Floyd and Franklin Medical Center agree that physician as customer is the best policy. When a facility treats a physician as a customer they must provide customer service- this is what keeps physicians around. Hospital/physician joint ventures have also been proven to be a popular option because both groups mutually benefit and as well as build affiliations with each other. This topic will be available in future HMC conferences and surveys, so stay tuned.