Becker's Hospital Review

99 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY 4 clinical chiefs: This is what a high-performing medical team looks like By Morgan Haefner T he COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressures on the resources and safety of the country's medical teams. Stories of immense challenges have been juxtaposed with stories of bravery, hope and camaraderie among front-line medical workers. For leaders of those workers, maintaining a highly engaged team has never been as challenging or rewarding as it is now. Hospital executives discussed this topic and more during a session on best practices for leading high-per- forming medical teams at the Becker's Clinical Leadership Virtual Event Sept. 9. The panel included: • Sean Tedjarati, MD, chief clinical integration officer for Westchester Medical Center Health Network in Valhalla, N.Y., and chairman and clinical profes- sor/director of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at New York Medical College in Valhalla and WMC Health Network • Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, chief clinical transformation officer at the Uni- versity Hospitals Health System in Cleveland • Mary Van de Kamp, chief clinical officer and senior vice president of admin- istration at Louisville, Ky.-based Kindred Healthcare • Ernest Wang, MD, chief of emergency medicine and assistant dean for med- ical education at the NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, Ill., and clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine Question: In your own words, how would you define a high-per- forming medical team? Mary Van de Kamp: One quality emanates from the highest-acting teams: trust. Trust between co-workers is needed to perform at one's highest level. And trust is an incredibly fragile expectation, because if it's broken at any time, teams struggle with building it back. Amazing teams come together with a full appreciation that their teammate is going to do what they're expected to do. Dr. Ernest Wang: I would agree with that. A high-performing medical team is what keeps me afloat. I can't do my job without them. Every high-performing team has the three Hs: head, heart and hands. ey have the clinical skills, the knowledge to take care of the situation and the attitude to go with it. Dr. Peter Pronovost: Like Dr. Wang said, effective teams are critical. If I asked cli- nicians when they hummed as a team, it's oen in the face of adversity. It's during a blizzard when you don't get to go home, or when a crisis comes in. It's not about resources. Teams that are effective spend enormous amounts of time reflecting on how they work together so that they are an expert team, not a team of experts. ey align around a common purpose, and COVID-19 did that with laser focus. Dr. Sean Tedjarati: Like Mary said, you build trust a drop at a time and you lose it a bucket at a time. In addition to that, when I think about teams, I think about cul- ture. Culture pervades everything in a team. A shared mission needs to be beyond oneself. Ideas that are offered up should belong to the group, not an individual. Without culture, you don't have a team. e best feedback I get from staff is, "I feel like I'm doing something bigger than myself." n 12% of physicians are considering leaving medicine and 7 other findings about the US physician COVID-19 experience By Anuja Vaidya A bout 54 percent of U.S. physicians said they have treated COVID-19 patients in person, and another 26 percent report treating coronavirus patients over the phone or via video, according to a Septem- ber Medscape report. The survey polled 7,414 physicians from eight countries, including 5,005 physicians from the U.S. The survey was conducted be- tween June 9 and July 20. Eight findings from U.S. physicians' survey re- sponses: 1. Emergency medicine physicians (94 per- cent) and nephrologists (89 percent) were the top two specialists treating COVID-19 pa- tients in person. 2. Twenty-three percent of physicians report- ed lacking appropriate personal protective equipment when treating COVID-19 patients. 3. Around 5 percent of physicians said they have been diagnosed with COVID-19. 4. Sixty-two percent of physicians said their income decreased since the beginning of the pandemic, with 33 percent reporting their in- come decreased by 11 percent to 25 percent. 5. Approximately 64 percent of physicians reported higher burnout since the pandemic started. 6. Forty-six percent said they were lonelier due to stay-at-home and social distancing guidelines. 7. About 25 percent of physicians were plan- ning to retire earlier than planned as a result of their experiences treating COVID-19, and 12 percent were considering leaving medi- cine. 8. Forty-three percent of physicians said their workplace offered activities to help clinicians with stress and grief. n

• Cover