Change, especially within a healthcare organization, can be hard. There are obstacles everywhere; from competing priorities to lack of interest, tight resources to budget cuts, sometimes it may seem like following the same routine and processes are the better [and easier] path to take. But what happens when you have a vision of betterment? What happens when you want to change but don’t know how to affect it?

I recently came across this article about physician engagement, and it got me thinking about change, especially in the healthcare world. For better or worse, your IT vision depends on physician engagement as much as physicians depend on you. Inspiration and acceptance of change are most powerful when you have a genuine interest and drive that pulls you towards your goals. Physician champions are the key to driving change within your organization and creating lasting impacts of your vision.

What’s the best way to connect with physicians? Put yourself in their shoes, and design your communication to appeal to their strengths. I want my physicians to be:

• Curious and intrigued about the end result, when presented with evidence
• Interested in positively impacting patient care through their work
• Able to connect their actions to clinical outcomes

Craft the message about your change with evidence-based rationale, how it impacts patient care, and how those impacts affect overall patient outcomes, and you’ll probably both get engaged feedback on your change and interested physicians.

Of course, you will need other champions too. Executive sponsorship might get you the staff or the budget, operational stakeholders might get you the feedback to round out your idea, and so on…but to truly shift direction, connect with your physicians. Substantiate your proposal by explaining the benefits of aligning goals and joining forces. To spark interest and ignite a fire for change, you need to understand what your physicians want and find the right balance between giving and taking in your relationship.

At Prominence, we believe that being dynamic and able to change is critical for any business and we make it a central part of our philosophy. We make change an outcome of every engagement we have. We want to see the effort you put forward turn into something great.