Background: Physician wellness has become a popular topic with reports of burnout among 50% of hospitalists nationwide. Evidence shows that managers directly impact employee engagement with up to half of provider burnout attributed to the leadership style of a physician’s immediate supervisor. While 360 feedback is a common method used to evaluate employers in the corporate world, few physicians have experienced this type of feedback. While Northwestern Medicine (NM) Division of Hospital Medicine (DoHM) employs an annual engagement survey to uncover issues impacting wellness, there is currently no mechanism in place for hospitalists to give constructive feedback to their direct managers.
Purpose: The aim of this project was to pilot a 360 feedback program with leadership coaching provided by NM Human Resources to evaluate DoHM leadership in order to target identified areas of improvement. The ultimate goal was to increase hospitalist engagement scores obtained from the annual DoHM engagement survey by 5%.
Description: We implemented a 360 feedback survey where 5 division faculty at large (direct reports), 3 leadership peers, and one supervisor assessed each leader in question. Respondents included Advanced Practice Providers and nursing managers in addition to physician hospitalists within NM DoHM. The survey asked respondents to rate each leader in 12 managerial domains (e.g. teamwork, integrity, communication etc). We then used survey results to provide individual and group coaching focusing on areas of improvement. Our surveys had a 93% response rate and all 9 leaders participated in an individualized coaching session with a trained coach to help interpret survey results and review personal areas of improvement. The leadership team met for 2 group coaching sessions focused on one area of improvement in particular that came as a surprise to our leadership team. The annual DoHM engagement survey had not identified this specific domain. As a result, the 360 surveys revealed a disconnect between division members and the DoHM leadership team that our current method for identifying areas of improvement had missed. During group coaching sessions, leaders focused on brainstorming root causes and interventions that targeted the identified domain. Unfortunately the COVID19 halted implementation of the interventions in question and confounded further engagement assessments.
Conclusions: Despite COVID19 impeding results, this study demonstrates that a 360 feedback approach can be helpful in identifying areas of improvement for division leadership and highlighting gaps between division members and their direct managers. Ultimately regular direct feedback for division leadership can be an effective strategy to maintain hospitalist engagement and prevent burnout.