What do you do if physicians lack the necessary resources and support to complete delegated tasks?

Understanding the specific needs of physicians is essential for providing effective support. By engaging in open dialogue and actively listening to their concerns, we can identify the most pressing challenges they face. Prioritizing these needs based on urgency and impact on patient care allows us to allocate resources strategically and ensure that the most critical gaps are addressed promptly. This demonstrates a commitment to supporting our medical staff and ultimately improving patient outcomes.

Sadly, there is a lot of time spent in conversation but nothing substantial happens. There is marginal change but the pressure always remains on meeting targets and not on a well rounded service. Often a mismatch between what the team needs and what management wants

The most frustrating experience to physicians is when you ask them to do something without a clear why and a well thought-off how. Many a time leadership 'solve' percieved problems by adding tasks to the never ending list of Physician responsibilities without getting adequate insight from them in advance. This frequently happens when it comes to billing/coding/prior authorization. Deficiencies in those areas should be solved by converting physicians to part-time coders. Unfortunately, that seems to be the easy way out- for non-physicians. Talk to your doctors first.

Understanding how to make a persuasive business case for identified needs is key to securing resources: collect evidence of how having the correct resources will make working practices more efficient and, if possible, how this will lead to financial efficiencies in the longer term.

Here again fund allocation appears to follow the specialty with the clinicians in the most senior roles. These clinicians naturally focus on their own specialties with the result that there is an unfair distribution of resources in my experience.

In theory this would be fantastic but the technology is imperfect making a simple task far more cumbersome and time consuming and in reality more inefficient

It seems like a no-brainer, but does it actually happen? I have witnessed systems built to achieve certain goals without taking front-end work flow into consideration. When that happens, multiple layers of unnecessary steps (clicks) are added, forcing physicians to jump from one section to another spending precious time on low yield activities. Poor work flow equates to frustration and burnout.

I agree but sadly funding is limited and study leave budgets have not grown in parallel with the clinicians needs. I, for example have no study budget for this year which is my revalidation year unless i pay for everything myself. These are also not considered tax rebatable so the very thing that is necessary to make your practice safe also costs a bomb

Nothing new about this. We all work in teams and good quality medical care cannot be delivered without good teamwork. Unfortunately this does mean that if one team fails then multiple teams fail.

Tasks should be delegated to the lowest level team member that can do a good job. A physician should not be asked to do something a well-trained staff can do. A job not well done by a staff at their appropriate level of expertise requires further training, not delegation to higher level.