Lack of Communication: No TIME to Talk

The next problem we’ll begin to unravel is the systemic lack of communication that runs rampant in nearly every hospital and healthcare organization. Over the next few posts, we’ll see how poor communication rears its ugly head in several obvious (and avoidable) places.

Simply put, no one’s talking to each other! Someone needs to speak up. Ah, would that it were so simple. Alas, as healthcare leaders, we know that lack of communication cannot be boiled down into a simple aphorism your grandmother might cajole you with before breakfast. Let’s jump in and begin to untangle this mixed-up communication web. 

No TIME to Talk

We’ll start this week with the simple fact of time. Everyone has the same 24-hours in a day, they say. And yet, most hospitals and health organizations are so rushed off their feet and over-scheduled (especially these days) there just isn’t time in the day for one-on-one conversations between leaders and physicians. Or, to put it differently, communication between leadership and physicians isn’t prioritized, therefore, its difficult to make time for it on the schedule.

The culture of many organizations is patient-focused, exclusively so. And while patient experience should be a top priority as, of course, that’s who we’re here to serve, prioritizing healthy relationships between leadership and physicians must claim another top priority spot as well. This time will be well invested, for trust and relationships need that time to strengthen and grow. When a hospital’s culture is GO GO GO instead of, “Let’s stop and discuss this for a moment,” things fall through the cracks, needs go unmet and ultimately, physicians burn out at an alarming rate. Without scheduled time to meet in small groups or with leaders individually, it doesn’t take long for miscommunications and resentments to build up between team members, putting the whole fragile structure at risk. Which, leads us back ‘round the merry-go-round to our connected issue discussed previously on the blog: Lack of Retention.

Once we begin to explore the problems facing our industry at length, it becomes easy to see how they are all interconnected, a web of issues woven throughout healthcare leadership. Next week we further explore the lack of communication by looking at the traffic jam caused up and down the leadership chain.