Essay On Employee Engagement

Employee engagement can and should be approached on multiple levels. For this article, I'd like to interview Brandon Smith, of The Workplace Therapist. He provides great insight on toxic work environments and identifying the disconnect between leaders and their employees. Using his perspective, I want to tie in "why employee engagement dips" to "how health benefits can bridge the engagement gap"

The need to improve quality in health care is increasing and a major component of quality health care is patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction is critical to how well a patient does and research has identified a clear link between patient outcomes and patient satisfaction scores. Patient satisfaction can be an indicator of provider performance and an important dimension of value-based health care under the Affordable Care Act.

A recent study may shed some light on the reasons for the success of smaller physician practices, which concluded that organizational features might reduce the risk of death within 30 days of admission for patients with AMI. In fact, strong engagement from senior managers and staff, along with clear goals and values were cited as some specific organizational features which led to this reduction in admission rates for AMI (Berenson & Rice, 2016). Employee engagement as an organizational success factor noted in the previous survey stands to reason. Consider the fact that strong employee engagement has been linked to higher quality patient care, patient satisfaction and patient engagement (91Engagement, 2013 ). To build further on this, another recent study which found that 36% of small company employees reported being “fully engaged” with their jobs, compared with 29% of those who worked for larger companies. Could this difference in the employee engagement levels at least partially explain the disconnect between quality in smaller and larger health systems? The authors of this same study explain that in a large organization, an employee assesses their engagement on their relationship with their direct boss, as opposed to workers in smaller organizations who base their

The concept of patient engagement varies among individuals in the industry. Which patient engagement strategy a hospital decides to put into action depends on the needs of that hospital. For example, Kaiser Permanente provides a ‘Stay Connected with Your Doctor’ program which allows patients and their family members to send and receive secure messages from their physicians. With an organization as big as Kaiser Permanente it makes sense to create a secure email messaging system, hence patients have an easier access to their doctors. On the other hand, with a smaller healthcare institution with fewer patients it wouldn’t seem sensible to create such an extensive system. Maybe sending out blast emails about healthcare

The basic content of this article was a summary of findings to determine the relationship between patient satisfaction and health care utilization, expenditures, and patient outcomes. Research has previously shown that patients bring expectations with them to medical encounters, which then relates to how well the physician fulfills the patient’s expectations. A descriptive analysis was done to compare patient characteristics and unadjusted outcomes. A logistic regression analysis was utilized to model the highest patient satisfaction quartile and to analyze two year outcomes based on emergency department visits and inpatient admissions. Results showed a correlation between a higher patient satisfaction score that is associated with less emergency department use, but greater inpatient use, higher overall health care, increased mortality, as well as prescription drug expenditures.

Moreno Medical Center (MMC) is a physician-owned full-service acute care hospital that has been around since 1975 (University of Phoenix, 2016). They recently experienced changes in payment with managed care, so they started looking closer at the processes and patient satisfaction with their current procedures (University of Phoenix, 2016). Currently, patient experience in the outpatient surgical clinic is low due to long delays throughout the admission and discharge processes (MMC issues, 2016). They hired a consultant to work with the surgical department on the issues that are apparent within the department to help to improve the satisfaction of the patients that the department serves (MMC issues, 2016). Today, we are going to take a closer look at MMC’s characteristics, organizational structure, social, and cultural aspects and they impact patient satisfactions and outcomes. We will also take a look at the responsibilities of the leaders of the organization, delegation, and staffing, and performance evaluations could impact patient satisfaction in the future.

The study revealed that the lack of employee engagement was the primary reason for reported poor patient experiences. The results of the study also included that once employee engagement improved, patient and employee satisfaction also improved.

Vorhauser-Smith, S. (2013, August 14). How the best places to work are nailing employee engagement. Retrieved 11 June 2013 from

The purpose of this study to examine the issues which impact patient satisfaction with surgical services and to discover the correlation between general satisfactions, satisfaction with precise outcome, and measured clinical outcomes. This study examines patient satisfaction after surgery. The participants were orthopedic patients that were randomly selected. The participants were selected following a surgery hospital visit. This study consisted of 4709 participants. Three factors approximately regulated the patient's overall satisfaction for the postoperative orthopedic patients’ meeting preoperative expectations, accomplishing satisfactory pain relief, and a perceived expectations of satisfaction related to hospital experience. Apparently,

As technology continues to advance and information becomes more available, the demand for electronic accessibility increases. In healthcare, patients now have the ability to view medical records and communicate with physicians electronically. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) require that all patients receive electronic access to their health records, including via patient portal (Tagalicod, 2013). Having health records available electronically gives patients access to the information they need when they need it and also allows patients to become more engaged in their care. Nonetheless, some important questions to ask are, how engaged are patients in their care? Do patients use online portals? How do patient portals impact

The article I have chosen to discuss provides extensive details on patient satisfaction; its impact on both health care professionals and patients, and its influence on health care delivery. The article “Teamwork. A focus on internal customers can lead to satisfied patients” by Gail Scott posits different strategies that can be applied so that an organization thrives and enjoy a reputation for patient satisfaction.

Hospitals and insurance providers alike as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are aiming to measure the value of health care (Morris, Jahangir, & Sethi, 2013). Improving patient satisfaction not only enhances the care a patient receives overall but it can have a major impact on a hospital’s reputation and financial results as well (Hall, 2008).

Recently, the Sales Training Department has developed a set of Key Sales Indicators (KSI 's) to monitor each Sales Representative 's sales performance against predetermined monthly targets. This was done to align the MAP to XYZ goal of improving sales performance and to reinforce the selling mindset of the sales department.

Employee engagement surveys are probably the most common way leaders can understand what their employees are thinking about their jobs and the organization. Currently ninety-two percent of companies use this method. (Hadjistoyanova, 2016) In the healthcare setting there is a direct link between employee attitudes and patient satisfaction. (Powell, 2001) Improving patient satisfaction is critical. Hospital reimbursement rate from Medicare and Medicaid revolves around the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare providers and Systems (HCAHPS), the federal system that monitors patient satisfaction and patient readmission rate. (HCAHPS, 2016) “Without employee engagement, you’re never going to get the kind of ultimate patient experience you’re hoping for” says Mike Packnett, CEO of Parkview Health. (Kruse, 2015)

Changing the behavior of an employee can be extremely difficult without using the proper tools that can affect that change. Although you may know the tools, using them properly and at the proper interval can still determine how successful that change will occur. One indicator of good behavior is employee engagement. Generally, an employee who is performing duties outside of their normal job scope is considered to be highly engaged and has is presenting good behavior. As a manager, we must find ways to fully engage our people to ensure the success of each individual and the organization. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of our employees will help us in capitalizing and exploiting their strengths; engaging them in areas where they can excel, thrive and become an advocate for the organization.