Overview
North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) is known for its differentiating leadership development programs that give clinicians the education and business skills to become inspired leaders and advance their careers. These proprietary programs are innovative in how they teach anesthesia professionals to contribute more effectively to our clients’ institutional goals and to better communicate with their perioperative colleagues and administrators at NAPA’s hospital and ASC partner sites.
In recent years, NAPA has invested in scaling an array of professional development opportunities to create greater access for its nearly 5,000 anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and anesthesiologist assistants who aspire to leadership roles. NAPA has also engaged talent experts and technology to identify high-potential clinical leaders who have the interest and attributes to succeed as leaders in and beyond the operating room (OR).
Data shows that our investments in leadership are a win-win for NAPA’s anesthesia providers and healthcare partners. Metrics tracking staff retention, performance, and engagement scores correlate with positive results for individuals and sites where NAPA clinicians and/or chiefs participated in leadership training. Advanced education and growth opportunities improve clinician retention, which creates anesthesia department continuity at NAPA sites. Inspired anesthesia leaders also build collaborative workplace cultures, which improve operational efficiencies and produce more satisfied clinicians and surgeons. At NAPA, we understand that putting patients first starts with investing in our people.
Situation
Healthcare providers cite clinical staffing as the biggest challenge impacting the industry today. For NAPA, delivering the highest quality anesthesia services to more than 2 million patients annually at hundreds of sites requires the ability to provide staffing stability. Our priority is recruiting and retaining talented anesthesia clinicians who consistently provide exceptional patient care. NAPA’s patient-first mission demands that we continually strive to be the Destination of Choice for dedicated anesthesia physicians, certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs), and certified anesthesiologist assistants (CAAs).
NAPA is distinguished by its industry-leading professional development opportunities that help anesthesia clinicians advance their careers. Ensuring a strong pipeline of anesthesia chiefs who have the clinical expertise to lead effective teams and the business acumen adds value for our partners. As NAPA has grown to become the nation’s largest single-specialty anesthesia organization, we recognized the need to scale our leadership education programs without sacrificing quality. This includes creating customized learning pathways to meet our clinicians’ individual needs and interests. We also realized that while NAPA offers best-in-class training, we needed better tools and processes to identify the best prospective leaders among our clinical talent pool. Our goal was to assess for clinicians who have both the aspiration and capabilities to become great leaders.
Solution
NAPA now builds and maintains a deep leadership bench through a two-pronged assessment and education approach that matches individual objectives with hybrid learning programs complemented by practical training. The assessment pillar leverages cutting-edge technology with talent reviews in a standardized system that identifies high-potential anesthesia chief candidates and measures the ongoing effectiveness of NAPA’s incumbent chiefs. This ensures that NAPA’s partners are served by the highest-performing anesthesia department leaders. Key features of this proven process include a self-nomination tool that allows clinicians to easily communicate their career goals to NAPA’s Talent and Leadership team, an on-demand People Experience and Technology Solutions (PXT) “full person” assessment of leadership potential, annual chief performance and potential reviews, and qualified candidate recommendations from current NAPA leaders.
The education pillar blends innovative classroom learning, leadership immersion programs, high-level seminars, simulations, mentoring, virtual programs, personal coaching, and self-paced training and skill development courses that teach clinicians what it means—and how to be—a strong leader. This includes an “essentials” toolkit program focused on leadership and communication skills typically not taught in medical and nursing schools, plus “select” cohort programs, clinical leadership orientations, and advanced summits with sessions delivered by NAPA business and industry experts. The various programs share a focus on strategic thinking, the business of the healthcare industry, driving OR efficiency, and relevant topics that enable NAPA chiefs to better understand and support their site administrators’ institutional and operational goals. NAPA’s leadership development program is further differentiated by a structure that integrates education with on-site application, allowing clinicians to systematically practice and reinforce their evolving knowledge and skill sets.
Results
We know that investing in meaningful professional development is intrinsically valuable for NAPA’s anesthesia clinicians, patients, and partners. While redesigning our educational platform, we also wanted to learn how a state-of-the-art leadership training program impacts clinician satisfaction and retention. Utilizing custom-developed measurement tools, NAPA data has revealed a positive correlation for higher retention rates among anesthesia clinicians who have participated in our educational programs. Advanced education also improves engagement: Chiefs in leadership development tracks have significantly higher net promoter scores (eNPS)—a customer experience metric commonly used to measure loyalty to an organization.
Deeper engagement by our clinical leaders has a direct and positive impact on our NAPA site partners, as indicated by their renewals of anesthesia and perioperative services management contracts with NAPA. In today’s challenging clinical staffing market, NAPA’s successful leadership programs are an important differentiator that distinguish NAPA as a partner committed to creating leaders who— through their training and inspired leadership—have demonstrated abilities to improve clinical and operational outcomes. We understand what it takes to drive exceptional patient care and profitability, and we are training clinician leaders to meet our partners’ needs.
Connect with NAPA to learn more about how our leadership development adds perioperative value that boosts ROI at the facilities we serve. Reach us at Businessdevelopment@NAPAanesthesia.com or 833-OR1-TEAM.