9 Ways Managers Can Support Team Accountability

Managing a Remote Physician Liaison Team and Support Team Accountability

Whether you work in a small or large practice, accountability is a crucial ingredient to achieving success. As a physician relations manager, it is your responsibility to help ensure that all team members are bought into the vision for the success of the organization’s growth. Here are my 9 ways managers can support team accountability:

1. Hire Motivated People

Building a liaison team that is passionate about your practice or facility and understands their role is the 1st step to setting the accountability benchmark for your team. During the interview process, ask specific questions geared toward discovering the future liaison’s dedication and motivation for the role.

2. Create a Shared Purpose

Allow the involvement of team members in your strategic planning and goals. This will enable liaisons to feel more ownership over growth initiatives and provide feedback. As a physician relations manager, you should not expect to consistently assign tasks without team member input. Encourage collaboration between your liaison team and yourself to create a practice environment that nurtures innovation. This will not only increase team members’ ownership but also confidence. Liaisons will be more likely to share their ideas, allowing your practice to thrive.

3. Provide Team Development

Providing resources and training is a key component to increase accountability within the workplace. For a liaison to feel connected and passionate about your practice, they must 1st be knowledgeable. Physician liaisons must be experts in your healthcare facility’s specialties and services to better assist physicians. Create a development plan for each new liaison. Ask for feedback after the training sessions are over to better improve. The more familiar a team member is with your practice, its services, and their role, the more invested and confident a team member can be.

4. Promote a Healthy Company Culture

Even a motivated, passionate, and dedicated liaison can be discouraged and become unmotivated because of negativity within a company culture. As a physician relations manager, strive to ensure all team members feel respected, encouraged and have a great workplace experience. Additionally, team members should feel their time at your organization is valuable to not only their career growth but their personal development. Create an environment that fosters a healthy state of mind.

5. Build Relationships

Show your involvement in your team members’ successes. The physician liaison role is all about building relationships. So, why not apply that to the relationships within your team? Get to know your team members’ interests and goals to better help them succeed.

6. Set the Example

Kick off the habit of accountability within your team by being more accountable yourself. As a physician relations manager, people look to you for guidance. If liaisons see you failing to fulfill your goals or pushing back deadlines, they may assume the same is allowable of themselves. Interesting fact, according to Harvard Business Review, in high-performance teams, peers manage the vast majority of performance problems with one another. The role of a manager should not be to settle problems or constantly monitor your team, it should be to create a team culture where peers address concerns immediately, directly, and respectfully with each other.

7. Track Growth

With so many responsibilities within the physician liaison role, it is imperative to keep track of visits, monitor issues, and know how you are impacting business growth. All physician liaison activity should be focused on achieving maximum relational growth and loyalty.

Pro Tip: To ensure physician liaison efforts are efficient, utilize a data-driven approach to track first-time referrals, variances in referrals, and activity.

8. Identify Gaps

Is there someone within your practice who is constantly falling short? Reevaluate the individual’s role to see what is working and what isn’t then realign as needed. Talk with this individual to include them in this realignment. Value their input and analyze their suggested plan of action to better understand the approach.

9. Provide Feedback

What you tolerate within your practice creates a benchmark for future expectations. Understand that there will be drawbacks to plans but hold the expectations of your team members high. Constantly give feedback and schedule meetings with individual team members to discuss performance. The more feedback you provide, the easier expectations can be met.

Closing Thoughts

A physician liaison has a multitude of never-ending roles and a hand in many different teams. Accountability not only affects the individual physician liaison but also can snowball and affect the entire organization. Establishing programs that support team accountability needs to be a top priority to better ensure the success of your hospital, specialty clinic, or large health system.

Date: March 29 2018
Subject: Physician Relations
About the author
Josh Cameron, MBA — President, Marketware
Josh Cameron, MBA

Executive Vice President

Marketware, a Division of Medsphere