Many factors affect a healthcare organization’s ability to provide quality patient care. But the most powerful key to better patient outcomes isn’t vanguard medical technology, an organization’s number of specialty providers, or even add-on programs designed to promote preventative care. Instead, recent research and practical in-the-field experience demonstrates that healthcare organizations can create the most profound improvements in patient care and satisfaction levels simply by improving employee engagement.

1. When it comes to the quality of
patient care, engagement matters—a lot.
decrease in infection rate
lower patient mortality and complication indices
least engaged nurses pay
for malpractice claims
$
1.1
What’s driving low engagement in healthcare?
The good news? Healthcare organizations
know engagement matters.
Change was the biggest factor.
said transitioning to ICD-10, managing HCAHPS,
and moving from paper to electronic records
had the biggest negative impact
thought their organization was solely focused on
patient care and consequently viewed the staff as
merely a “means to an end”
stated frequent changes of supervisors and
clinical turnover
The bad news? Awareness hasn’t yet
translated into action.
agreed with
the statement “linking
professionals’ behavior to patient
care, and monitoring those
interactions, positively affects our
organization’s bottom line and our
return on the training investment.”
do not measure
engagement levels
have a complete strategy
to address engagement
generally measure
engagement levels
stated day-to-day concerns—
from patient emergencies
to ICD-10 transition—interrupt
the development of an
engagement strategy
stated there wasn’t enough
time in the day to focus
on engagement
thought their workplace
culture didn’t lend itself to
focusing on engagement
were using a unified talent management
system that managed all areas of HR
still relied on multiple HR systems
(Franken-systems) and/or
paper-based processes
Organizations using a unified talent management
process reported
higher scores
in staff
engagement
higher in
leadership
development
higher in creating
a pipeline of
viable successors
actively link some staff
behaviors to patient outcomes
87%
“Would you recommend this hospital
to your friends and family?” higher10%
25%
Yet in healthcare, almost half of professionals
aren’t fully engaged.
What’s standing in the way of creating formal
engagement strategies?
The majority of healthcare organizations
are not taking advantage of technology to
address engagement
However, those that do link professionals’ behaviors
to patient outcomes do so by
million
26%
13%
77%
29.3%
46.9%
47.7%
25.3%
28%
19%
16%
29%
36%
41%
88%
12%
26%
20%
25%
aligning staff
goals with
organizational
goals
actively
encouraging
professionals to
take additional
training
conducting regular
performance
assessments and
tying learning and
development to
those assessments
to address skill gaps
What is the Real Cost of
Engagementt
Employee
Healthcare?
in