3 Secrets to HCAHPS Success (Through Employee Engagement)

I’ve already covered some of the reasons that employee engagement is so important here. It’s critical to the success of any project, and it needs to start right now. You need your staff to care about your scores, and you’re going to get people engaged if you do these three things:

Consider This

Keep to a schedule.

This will keep the momentum of HCAHPS improvement strong by giving staff achievable goals without overwhelming them with information. If you can keep people interested rather than apathetic or apprehensive 

Have a minimum of 10% staff participation.

All of your management (which is probably about 5% of your total staff) and 5% of your front-line employees should be actively invested in improving your HCAHPS scores. This 10% is what we call “critical mass” or “tipping point;” the percentage of people that it takes to get the ball rolling on a new project or idea. Be sure to have your most positive and energetic front-line people participate; enthusiasm is contagious, just like pessimism, so make sure to enlist the superstars first. Webinars, conferences, whitepapers—use every resource that you can lay your hands on to get your people educated, invested, and excited.

Utilize tools.

Everybody needs a little help now and then—especially with organization.

1. Put a team together and develop a DO IT (Daily Ongoing Improvement Tactic) Plan.

2. Be accountable—have strict deadlines and specific ideas for implementation.

Jumpstart your success by deciding Who will do What by When and How (WWWH) so that you can track your progress and success. A goal without specificity or a deadline is just wishful thinking, and that won’t bring your scores up.

3. Make sure all staff are on the same page—and act with urgency!

John Kotter (author of the international bestseller Leading Change) has said that all change fails because of a lack of urgency. Never have truer words been spoken! Don’t let your motivation to improve be pushed aside by other responsibilities (like so many New Year’s resolutions), because yes, day-to-day stuff is important—but so is long-term improvement. Have the 10% of staff that we talked about earlier champion the new projects and maintain an enthusiastic, improvement-focused mentality. Attitudes are contagious, and they spread like the flu – make sure your employees and colleagues are “catching” positivity.

M.B.W.A.

Management By Walking Around; so simple, yet so effective! If you check in personally and professionally, you will reap two benefits:

• People will feel like management listens - and therefore cares about what they do.
• You are supporting the service that your employees provide.

Ask them about their day, their family, their kids, their hobbies; ask what you could do to make their day great, what have they got on their plate today, what roadblocks you could clear for them? They will be grateful for your interest and your offer to help, guaranteed. A word of caution: do not go down this road if you aren’t prepared to be sincere about M.B.W.A. People can tell when someone cares about them and when they don’t, so be sincere rather than saccharine.

Shouldn’t we be providing a great patient experience to every patient, every time, no exceptions? It’s the right thing to do. It’s our mission, our values, and it’s what we believe in as individuals.

What could your team achieve if they knew what to do, and wanted to do it?

The Take Away

Keep everyone accountable to the changes you undertake with specificity and deadlines. If you support your people by maintaining a sincere personal and professional interest, the opportunities are limitless.

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