Why it's so important to listen to the needs and wants of your employees and how to take action

The research team I joined at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy over a decade ago was fortunate to have relationships with healthcare systems across the Unites States. Most of them were large academic health systems with clinical pharmacists embedded in the care teams. Much of our research relied on those clinical pharmacists to provide an intervention to the patients they served based on our research protocol. The intervention would last a predetermined length of time and we would haver an on-site research assistant gather data at baseline and at the conclusion of the intervention.

After all patients had completed the intervention, our team would conduct surveys with different members of the on-site research team, pharmacists, physicians, administrators, nursing staff, etc. Most of the questions on the surveys aimed to identify barriers and facilitators for implementing the intervention as part of usual care in the future. Perspectives from different levels of the organization proved critical in identifying “Best Practices” for this type of team-based care.

Sometimes it is hard to just know what your employees needs are, so ask!

As the ranking clinical pharmacist on the team, I had the opportunity to interview many pharmacists and physicians. Our survey questions were scripted with the flexibility for open discussion and f/up questions as necessary. Not once do I recall having a pharmacist or physician tell me team-based care was not a good idea or not an effective model for providing patient care. In fact, the response was quite the opposite. Physicians wanted more clinical pharmacists on their teams and pharmacists wanted more time for direct patient care. Wait. What? More time for direct patient care? You are already working full time and you want more direct patient care?

Delving further into this theme revealed on-site pharmacists spent more than 25% of their workday on non-patient care activities. This included primarily administrative tasks, academic teaching and other academic commitments. As I mentioned earlier, most of these health systems were part of large academic health systems so many of the clinical pharmacists had dual appointment with a College of Pharmacy and with the health system.

Some of you reading this may be thinking to yourself, “Yah, so what. My situation is very similar. I don’t get enough direct patient care either.” Last week I had one of those “Not enough direct patient care weeks.” I found myself knee deep in renewing compliance requirements, navigating rules and regulations, and tracking down individuals to help resolve problems. Some of these challenges had to be dealt with in a timely fashion and forced me to reorganize my calendar to meet the requests. A challenge in and of itself.

Some last words of advice:

A mentor once told me employees who get variation in their job responsibilities tend to be happier and work harder. Some need more than others and some want very little change in the day-to-day routine. The challenge is finding that balance for each individual and doing your best to accommodate. Employees are one of the most crucial resources for any company and HR data would suggest most employees leave their job because their supervisor didn’t provide routine feedback/guidance, or the company didn’t show appreciation for the work the employees are doing. Depending on the source, pay isn’t even in the top 3.