Another terrific evening with our provoking event on Clinician Engagement!
The consensus was clear: clinically qualified professionals who are well-engaged lead to better outcomes and better performance.
Engagement is a journey, not simply a set of completed actions (as it’s often seen). An organisation’s culture is vital to the journey and in creating a supporting atmosphere for real engagement. All too often, engagement becomes a “check in the box” process without having clinicians involved at the outset. Clinicians should be part of the design.
Culturally, engagement and relationship management need to be embedded within an organisation and continually reinforced to stop it disappearing into the black hole of failures.
Leadership is fundamental to success but it’s a collective responsibility.
Importantly, the conversation critically addressed what not to do when an organisation is seeking engagement;
- Don’t simply get a group of people together and say “we’re now implementing engagement”;
- Don’t let it become “tokenism” – be committed top-down and bottom-up;
- Involve those people who will be affected from the start and pay special attention to those who will be less engaged but impacted by your decisions;
- Involvement does not equal engagement: make it count; and
- Be respectful of the individuals, listen to them, use their feedback and act – be very careful of losing any goodwill.
The main take away though: understand that engagement cannot be ‘project managed’ – it’s a journey that will take a life of its own.
Many thanks to our wonderful panel, facilitated by A / Prof. Helen Dickinson:
- A / Prof. Christine Jorm, University of Sydney
- Andrew Stripp, CEO Monash Health
- Jason Micallef, University of Melbourne
- David Tickell, Clinical Director Specialist Clinics, Women’s & Children’s Health, Ballarat Health Services
Of course, our events don’t happen without the support of our sponsors and we‘d like to thank Slater & Gordon for a superb evening!