In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Deborah Chasco, DNP, director of nursing informatics at the University Medical Center of El Paso (Texas).
Dr. Chasco will speak on a panel during the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference on "The Return on Investment in Data Analytics and Health IT" at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 20. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.
Question: Can you share your best advice for motivating your teams?
Dr. Deborah Chasco: In three simple words, the most important thing in motivating my team is: communicate, communicate, communicate. Communication is essential to motivating teams to be creative, innovative and transparent. Rounding with teams and listening can go a long way in
improving processes. It also gives leaders the ability to remove any obstacles that hinder moving
teams forward and allow [them to equip] teams [with] all resources needed to move the
organization forward. Communication gives leaders the opportunity to share the vision of the
organization and the department. It allows for active interaction. I call this "Intentional
Motivational Team Time," or IMTT. This time is not only for team members but also for me, as a
leader. IMTT is a great time to award and thank members for their input. It facilitates
successful implementation strategies that include active team participation. Communicating the
importance of flexibility, addressing issues or concerns with team input, and recognizing team
members leads to engagement and active participation. Letting the team know that we can
accomplish what we set out to do as a team is important. Being transparent and honest in team
communication builds trust.
Q: How does your organization gain physician buy-in when it is implementing a new technology or solution?
DC: UMC El Paso engages physician input from the start … of implementing new technology. It is important to include physician champions from the planning to implementation phases to [consider] physician workflows. Keeping providers in the know is essential to the success of any process. UMC El Paso just implemented a new technology and process change. Physicians were included from every department with physician champions leading teams. Nursing informatics and IT were part of the initiative. Physicians were included from the [request for proposal] to the build and go-live. Physicians are part of our testing and re-testing process. Nursing informatics also meets with providers for education and re-education of physicians. Flexibility is important due to everyone's time constraints. Nursing informatics is flexible and provides education and re-education in multiple platforms. We have been extremely successful with this process. We had a very smooth transition with a decrease in use of dictation by 50 percent during the first month of implementing the new technology. When the "why" of the implementation solution or new technology echoes throughout the planning phases, the results are positive.
Q: What is the biggest barrier to price transparency in the healthcare industry?
DC: If we do not become transparent with pricing, U.S. hospitals will be losing healthcare customers to retail clinics, standalone surgical centers and walk-up medical facilities. To keep up with the competition, we must make prices more transparent and accessible to the public. In addition, prices must also be defensible. What is the biggest barrier to price opacity in healthcare? It is a combination of a complex healthcare system where talking about price transparency is not done often enough. Physicians, insurance companies and U.S. hospitals need to meet and talk about pricing to meet individual healthcare needs in the U.S. Hospitals are complex and may not provide services with like pricing. We must educate the public about how pricing is variable across physicians, specialties and location throughout the U.S. There are many great things about [price transparency] in the healthcare industry, [which] include driving costs down as well as giving consumers options on healthcare services. The challenge I see is in addressing social determinants of health and improving access to care through interoperable data, analytics and reporting capabilities to support clinical integration, transparency, new payment models and continuous innovation to integrate care. We must address patient needs seamlessly while making the cost and quality of care transparent for making better decisions at the point of care. Improving access to care must encompass [better] screening and prevention while [still maintaining high-quality] standards of care, and the individual experience [should involve] controlling costs and making healthcare costs transparent. Leaders must reach out to the community and improve interoperability in healthcare to encompass population health while providing quality patient care to every patient, every encounter, every day.