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33 Key Specialties K eeping staff engaged and excited about their jobs is a key aspect of the success of a medical practice. Here six spine surgeon leaders discuss the challenges of keeping staff motivated and strategies they use to over- come those issues. Question: What is the hardest aspect of engaging staff and keeping them moti- vated? Douglas Won, MD, Founder and Director, Minimally In- vasive SpineCARE, Irving, Texas: In an organization that is rapidly growing, the most difficult aspect of mo- tivating and engaging the staff is continually making sure we all stay on the same page. Though it is challenging at times, constant communication is vital to our success. Jeffrey Carlson, MD, Presi- dent and Managing Part- ner, Orthopaedic & Spine Center, Newport News, Va.: Engaging staff is a constant focus of our team. The hard- est part is maintaining the engagement. We are able to get our staff motivated and engaged in the prac- tice, but the excitement and energy tend to wane. Presenting the overall goals of the practice and getting our staff to understand these beliefs tends to get our staff to buy-in to the goals. Being open in the goals of the practice and expectations of the experience in the office gives staff a supportive base for their progress in the practice. Maintain- ing the interest of anyone in this generation of workers can be very difficult. Thomas Loftus, MD, Founder, Austin (Texas) Neurosurgical Institute: The most difficult part in engaging staff is keeping them in a cohesive team. The most difficult part in keeping staff motivated is the difficulty in helping them see the value they pro- vide to the practice and the importance of each of their individual roles in ensuring the entire team functions at a high level of efficiency and effectiveness. Q: What tends to weigh down on staff and de-motivate them? Bryan Oh, MD, BASIC Spine, Newport Beach, Ca- lif.: Dealing with complaints from other staff and from patients. They just see it as job rather than a mission to make people better. No mat- ter how much work they do or don't do, people will complain and so they feel like — why put in the extra effort? Vincent Prusick, MD, Great Lakes Orthopaedic Center, Traverse City, Mich.: One of the difficult things within spine is that sometimes you are dealing with patients who are suffering from chronic pain issues. The staff will get frequent calls about medication renewals and the staff needs to know when it is appropri- ate to do that and also when a patient may need to be referred to a pain management specialist. It requires a lot of staff training and they need to know the protocols. Q: What are some workforce motivation strategies that you use at your medical practice? Dr. Won: Firstly, education and mentoring. We provide unlimited opportunities for each and every team member to gain more knowledge as it pertains to the services we provide, each indi- vidual's job function and our organization as a whole. Secondly, feedback and encouragement. It is important to me that our team is always on the same page. I strive to communicate a clear vision of what we want to accomplish and what my expectations are. After this is accomplished, we can then ad- equately provide the staff with constructive feed- back and encouragement that will motivate them to give 110 percent. Thirdly, recognition. Our organization coordi- nates a quarterly staff mixer where we come to- gether as a team and recognize two or three staff members that have gone above and beyond dur- ing that particular quarter. These employees are sometimes chosen by their peers, sometimes by the management and sometimes by the physi- cians. It's a great way for the team to stay moti- vated throughout the course of the year. Michael Roh, MD, Co- Founder, Rockford (Ill.) Spine Center: One strategy that we have applied revolves around the notions of stress and control. Basically, situ- ations with high stress and low control can be extremely toxic and inevitably result in loss of motivation and performance. In contrast, high stress combined with high control is very stimulating and keeps people engaged in their job. Therefore, I strive to em- power my employees to assess problems and make decisions, giving them control whenever possible. In my experience, surgeons who "mi- cromanage" or indulge their "control freak" tendencies reduce their employees to unhappy drones. I also meet regularly with key employ- ees to allow them to "shoot the breeze" and vent about anything that comes to mind about themselves or the practice. By keeping lines of communication open and honest, it allows me to spot potential problems early. raising and Maintaining Staff Engagement: 6 Spine Surgeon Leaders By Anuja Vaidya us to get the information that biopsies give, and so GI physicians will be able to get that information. The keys to success will be the ability to be flexible and the ability to reinvent oneself every so many years. Q: What will implementation of the Patient Protection and Afford- able Care Act mean for the GI field as the rollout continues? Dr. Englander: A fair amount of confusion. There will be a lot of gearing up and time spent towards getting data, that includes clinical data, data on patient satisfaction. I would have forgone all the money that we got from the government for implementing electronic health record systems and other systems because we have lost more money implementing these systems than the amount we are getting back. Dr. Milliken: The new CPT codes that going to effect in October represent a major challenge for all physicians. In addition, with the Affordable Care Act, none of us know how this will affect our practice of medicine as there are so many unknowns. Also, the change from fee-for-service to fee-for-perfor- mance — how this will affect physicians is still somewhat unclear. n