By: Kriss Barlow, RN, MBA | kbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com
What do inflation, escalating labor shortages, associated labor costs and hospital operating pressures have to do with a day in the life of a liaison?
Sometimes, there’s a tendency to separate the field role from operating obligations, but that’s not quite right. Many leaders feel significant pressure to right-size the balance sheet and operations functions and the physician relations team should be front and center in that mission. Let’s raise our hands and play a key role.
Timing Matters: Our desire may be to slowly get back into the field groove of growth conversations, but our organizations need us now. A quicker, more effective relaunch will get your message to the referring audience ahead of the competition. And the effort can be structured to position services that the organization needs most right now.
Take Initiative: Growth areas may be different than pre-COVID because of internal access issues. Make your internal connections with those key strategic areas and then work through other areas until you have a solid mix of ready offerings. It may be niche areas within a service line or a focus on GI procedures instead of surgeries. Learn what’s ready for growth, put together a plan and then get it blessed and into the field with a solid message and deliverables that can offer results.
Listen to the Practice: As you re-enter, make sure that the conversation includes a heavy dose of listening and learning in addition to sharing benefits. Take those learnings back to the hospital stakeholders. Hospital leaders are feeling the pains of the last couple of years and so are the practices. Let’s help the internal stakeholders quantify the impact on practices and their potential to refer, including the emotional toll for providers. Field intelligence has never been more important.
Take Credit: Quick, clear messages about what you are doing, what you are learning and what lies ahead can be done through a brief email of back-in-the-field weekly learnings or your routine monthly activity report. Bandwidth is limited for our leaders so your reports may need to be revamped to accommodate the “ at-a-glance” learnings.
Exciting times await as field staff refine the right approach for a changing market. Are you ready? We’d love to hear how it’s working for you.
If you are interested in more ideas and training to re-energize your team, send me a note and we’ll find time to talk through your needs and the best options. kbarlow@barlowmccarty.com.