Becker's Hospital Review

Executive Briefing: Emotional Intelligence 37 Sponsored by: Healthcare Emotional Intelligence: Its Role in Patient Outcomes and Organizational Success By Bryan Warren, Manager, Healthcare Solutions, Select International  T here is a growing interest in healthcare, in the role of Emotional Intelligence — a set of behavioral competencies, which impact performance. There is also a growing body of evidence that individual behaviors, including EQ, influence patient outcomes and organizational success. What is EQ? How does it apply to healthcare? How do we use it to improve performance? Everyone is striving to provide patient-centered care, and to increase quality while reducing costs. Operational strategies like Lean and Six Sigma are helping to design more effective and efficient care models. Information systems make clinical and financial data more useful and enhance efficiency. While these strategies and technologies are widely available, not every organization is successful. For instance after intense focus on patient safety over the past few years, a recent report by the Leapfrog Group revealed that most hospitals showed no improvement in safety scores and some even declined. Patient safety, and patient-centered care are, to a large degree, about individual behaviors and interactions between providers and patients and among administrators, physicians, nurses and staff. Ted Kinney, PhD, head of research and development at Select International, summed it up: "At its very core, the patient experience is an evaluative attitude about the level of care that people provided during the treatment cycle. Revisions to process and new technology can provide efficiencies, but, in the end, a patient's attitude depends on [his or her] interactions with people. Those high in EQ are able to navigate those interactions in a way the leaves a positive impression." Emotional intelligence – What is it? In the 1930s psychological research had identified "social intelligence" skills, distinct from traditional intelligence, that impact work performance. By the 1980s research showed that overall performance was often the result of interpersonal, more than technical, skills. By the 1990s, the term "emotional intelligence" was widely discussed in business circles. Definitions typically include about two dozen social and emotional abilities that are often grouped into five core areas: • Self awareness • Self regulation • Self motivation • Social awareness • Social skills Interest in the concept took off in the 1990s and it continues to have widespread support in the business world, but healthcare has been slow to apply EQ concepts. Behaviors and outcomes Efforts to improve quality will always begin with research and training on new diagnostic and treatment approaches. There is a growing body of evidence, however, that individual behaviors significantly influence outcomes. For instance, relatively simple protocols have been shown to virtually eliminate certain hospital-acquired infections. Some hospitals adopt these protocols but don't reduce infection rates. Why? John Santa, MD, MPH, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, commented on the dilemma: "For the process to work, each individual has to make a commitment to perform each step each time, and have the courage to correct their colleague when they see an error has been made."1 Success requires staff members who see the value of new procedures and a culture of communication, collaboration and adaptability. We are learning that behaviors like empathy and compassion not only make for a better patient experience, they actually impact patient outcomes. For instance, provider empathy improves patient satisfaction and adherence to treatment and correlates with fewer medical errors. Empathetic doctors are better at managing chronic conditions like diabetes. Inappropriate behaviors by nurses and physicians are not only disruptive to the work environment but, more importantly, those behaviors can harm patients. EQ might be offered as an explanation for why some practitioners and organizations are better at delivering patient-centered care.2 There is also evidence that EQ can be improved with training. If providers have a better understanding of their behavioral propensities, they can adopt specific behaviors that will improve interactions with patients and colleagues. Healthcare emotional intelligence Working with a group of physician leaders at a progressive healthcare system, we heard the following: "We appreciate the connection between EQ and patient care and physician career success, but when we took an EQ assessment, we found the results to be interesting, but weren't sure what to do with the information." Traditional EQ measurement tools do not provide practical recommendations for physicians and nurses. "Part of the problem is that the concept of EQ — how it is defined, measured and used, has not been looked at within the unique

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