This article is sponsored by Homecare Homebase. In this Voices Interview, Hospice News sits down with Brandy Sparkman-Beierle, Chief Clinical Officer, Homecare Homebase, to talk about why clinicians are pitted against their technology resources, driven by a desire to spend their time helping people, not documenting. Brandy Sparkman-Beierle shares important strategies for leveraging technology to achieve clinician satisfaction and operational excellence, including psychological safety, documentation efficiencies and giving clinicians a seat at the table.
Hospice News: What career experiences do you most draw from in your role today?
Brandy Sparkman-Beierle: About nine months into my home care nursing journey, I was experiencing some care fatigue. I had just found out I was pregnant with my son, and I was carrying a fairly large caseload in rural Texas, which required a lot of driving. There were so many moving parts, and I was “in the red” from a clinician satisfaction standpoint, meaning I was feeling pretty burnt out.
I received a call at 2:00 AM on Christmas, and the answering service told me that a patient was having difficulties with his Foley catheter and needed assistance at his home about an hour away. I called the patient and told him and his wife that I would be on my way, put on my scrubs, and left my driveway. I remember being emotional all the way there — I was so tired, burnt out and exhausted.
When I got to the patient’s house, however, they were both so thankful and gracious, telling me with tears in their eyes how much they appreciated my visit. He was in pain, and they knew that I could solve his problems, which completely changed my whole outlook. It became my “Why.”
How is Homecare Homebase helping providers start conversations around clinician satisfaction?
Clinician satisfaction is our No.1 strategic initiative today. We are focused on giving leadership the information and insight they need to pick up the phone and have a meaningful conversation with their clinicians about where they stand. We looked at eight different drivers of clinician satisfaction and developed a clinician satisfaction dashboard to put that information at leadership’s fingertips.
Today, you can go into that dashboard and find out if a clinician is in the red, and even the factors driving that dissatisfaction. It’s not a picture in totality, but I think it is a very important engagement tool to reach out to the clinician and say, “Hey, I’m noticing that you’re driving more. I’m noticing that there is variability in your care continuity, caseload and weekends on call. How are you feeling about this? How can I better support you?”
We have been focused on helping our customers measure clinician satisfaction in a meaningful way so that they can have those crucial conversations with their clinicians and make sure that they’re not experiencing care fatigue. Then they can alleviate those stressors and turn the red and yellow drivers into green drivers. At the end of the day, you have to feel exceptional as a clinician in order to go out and deliver exceptional care.
What are some of the ways HCHB is assisting with clinical satisfaction?
We have a multi-faceted approach to assisting with clinical satisfaction that starts with giving clinicians a voice, and we are intentionally establishing a culture that engages and supports clinician satisfaction. A few of the ways in which we’re accomplishing this is by having our product team conduct listening sessions with clinicians. They’re even doing ride-a-longs just to understand what the day-to-day life of a clinician looks like. We’ve also established a clinician advisory group where we include clinicians in our development efforts and let them experience our products so that we can better understand how to enhance them before they go to market.
Additionally, I think Homecare Homebase has hired more clinicians in the last 12 months than they have in its history. It’s an internal effort to arm ourselves with the clinician’s perspective in every facet of our organization because it is so important. Clinicians are the foundation of Homecare Homebase. They’re at the table talking about how our decisions will impact the way they use our software every day.
How can you give clinicians a seat at the table when it comes to technology adoption?
Bringing clinicians to the table can be accomplished by creating a culture of empowerment and active listening. We have to ask them thoughtful questions and truly listen to what they have to say without assuming we already know the answer.
We have to link arms and make sure that clinicians understand the “Why” behind our decisions, as well as how those changes will impact their adoption of technology and patient interactions. Sometimes there might be a process or a piece of technology that doesn’t make a lot of sense to a clinician, but once you explain the “Why,” it’s like a light bulb goes off. They’re the subject matter experts and they’re brilliant. Not only do we have to give them a seat at the table, but we also have to make sure that we’re respecting and valuing their feedback.
What is psychological safety, and how does HCHB help clinicians achieve it?
Good clinicians provide empowered, exceptional care when they take care of the patients, but they have to do it within the compliance and regulatory guardrails. They have to feel safe in that they can provide the right care and have quality documentation to support the care that they deliver. I think that’s one thing that Homecare Homebase has done well over the last 20 years — we have provided that safety net. If a clinician or an agency has to recall any kind of care that was provided, there is a comprehensive electronic health record within Homecare Homebase.
Lack of psychological safety and trust are causing many nurses to leave the bedside in organizations because they do not feel safe and protected in their care environment. Nurses need to feel physically, clinically and emotionally secure as they provide care. That means they need to know they won’t be put in a position that risks the patient’s health, their own physical or emotional well-being, or their licenses. From how they’re documenting care to how their leaders are supporting them, I think psychological safety is at the heart of clinician satisfaction.
What are some of the ways in which technology can help with clinical efficiency?
Clinical technology should be intuitive and delightful without documentation redundancy so that clinicians can focus on meaningful work. They want to spend more time with the patient versus inside the documentation solution, and we can achieve this through streamlined, focused intuitive solutions.
Finish this sentence: “In the hospice industry, 2023 will be the year of…”
…purpose.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Homecare Homebase is a software leader offering hosted, cloud-based solutions to streamline operations, simplify compliance and boost clinical and financial outcomes for home-based care agencies. HCHB is working closely with our customers and clinical users to help improve clinician satisfaction in the home-based care industry. To learn more visit https://hchb.com/lp-clinician-satisfaction.
The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact [email protected].