March Madness. The World Series. The Super Bowl. Nothing is more exciting than watching a well-organized team performing at the top of its game.
Teamwork isn’t limited to sports, though. Physician private practices can benefit from organized workflows and shared effort that can reduce expenses and practically eliminate physician burnout, according to Kevin D. Hopkins, MD. He is west regional medical director for primary care at the Cleveland Clinic and an AMA senior physician adviser.
Dr. Hopkins discussed techniques for bringing a team-based care approach to private practices and patient care and using team organization to improve efficiency and economy during a session that is part of the AMA Private Practice Simple Solutions, a series of free, open-access, rapid learning cycles.
Properly implemented, team-based care can address some of the most important problems identified by physicians.
“Team-based care,” he said, “can improve accessibility, improve quality of patient care, improve patient flow, and improve satisfaction and engagement at all levels.”
Teamwork prevents burnout
Team-based care is also a way of coping with the current trend in physician burnout, he noted. The trend, tracked since 2011 by the AMA, Stanford and Mayo Clinic, has been “unsustainable and troublesome,” he said.
“It’s a serious impact on our organizations,” he said.
Workload is also an issue, he said, with studies indicating the equivalent of 32 hours of “work after work” or about an extra work week each month.
Team-based care can help moderate these physician practice management problems by reducing unnecessary, low-value work and creating a workflow that facilitates sharing of necessary, valuable work, Dr. Hopkins said.
Team-based care can also allow a physician private practice to work directly in implementing innovative workflows and practices that can directly affect time and efficiency. Pre-visit planning, for example is one way that a practice team can expedite work and reduce time spent on a patient during a care session, he said.
“And it can also lead to savings of $26 per visit,” he noted.
Another simple workflow improvement is the introduction of annual prescription renewals, he said, which reduce office calls for medication renewals.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created several other management problems that team-based care helps address, including: staff turnover, demand for telehealth visits and staffing shortages. It takes astute clinical judgment as well as a commitment to collaboration and solving challenging problems to succeed in independent settings that are often fluid, and the AMA offers the resources and support physicians need to both start and sustain success in private practice.
Steps toward team-based care
Ready to bring teamwork to your practice? Just follow these steps outlined by Dr. Hopkins.
First, create a change team by “bringing some people together that can represent various work levels and skill sets in your practice. Think about what might be different if you were able to design the ideal practice.”
Then, start designing team-based care workflows to fit your goals. If one of your practice goals is to reduce the number of follow up phone calls or letters sent, consider building a workflow for previsit lab testing for a first team goal.
Next, gather a pilot team. “Bring together a combination of decision-makers, front line workers and staff that are interested in figuring out ways to do things better,” Dr. Hopkins said.
“Recognize that role flexibility is part of practice culture. So, we need to make time for team members to learn new responsibilities. And a big part of that is eliminating unnecessary activities and waste,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter what you start with,” Dr. Hopkins said. “It could be something that is specific to your practice. The key is to start something and track outcomes and then optimize your processes.
“Don’t just be one and done. Continue to iterate. To think and see how you can do things better.”
Find out more about the AMA Private Practice Physicians Section, which seeks to preserve the freedom, independence and integrity of private practice.
