From Burnout to Buy-In: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Build Engagement Within a Hospital Medicine Group.
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
BACKGROUND: Poor frontline clinician engagement negatively impacts patient safety and quality of care and increases clinician burnout and clinician attrition. AIM: Use appreciative inquiry (Ai) to improve hospitalist and physician associate (PA) engagement including job satisfaction, retention, and professional development over 1 year. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Interdisciplinary hospital medicine group comprised of 47 hospitalists and PAs at a community-based university-affiliated urban hospital. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Six frontline hospitalists and PAs formed a PA-Hospitalist Task Force to improve engagement using Ai which fosters autonomy, competence, and relatedness, key tenets of self-determination theory. The Task Force used surveys and focus groups to foster collaboration and empower frontline clinicians to capitalize on existing strengths to shape best practice guidelines. PROGRAM EVALUATION: Of those eligible to participate, 74% (14/19) of hospitalists and 84% (16/19) of PAs participated in focus groups. Within a year, participants reported that interventions improved job satisfaction and professional development and enhanced motivation and meaning in work. PA retention increased by 20%. DISCUSSION: Ai is a powerful tool to foster frontline engagement within hospital medicine groups. Our methods can be applied to other practice settings and inter-professional groups.
