Experience of Care Consultant

We are so glad you are interested in joining Sutter Health!

Organization:

SC - Sansum Clinic

Position Overview:

Note: The person selected for this role must reside within California’s Central Coast region, within proximity to Sansum Clinic locations (part of Sutter Health) in the Santa Barbara area.

Provide coaching and/or training to frontline staff, leaders, physicians and practices within. Develop consistently excellent service and communication skills across all entity facilities' practices to increase patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction and employee satisfaction. This position will train and promote evidence-based best practices for service behaviors and communication skills. Acts as a change agent, gaining commitment and eliciting follow-through from coaching clients. Will design and develop action plans and training resources to meet the needs of coaching clients throughout the organization.

Job Description:

These Principal Accountabilities, Requirements and Qualifications are not exhaustive, but are merely the most descriptive of the current job. Management reserves the right to revise the job description or require that other tasks be performed when the circumstances of the job change (for example, emergencies, staff changes, workload, or technical development).

JOB ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Coach frontline staff, leaders, physicians and other healthcare professionals in evidence-based service behaviors and communication techniques for an improved patient experience and patient satisfaction with care providers:
• Identify potential clinician coaching clients for coaching engagement.
• Conduct clinician and patient interviews, shadow clinician-patient interactions and observe clinician interpersonal skills and non-verbal communication to identify improvement opportunities according to evidence-based best practices.
• Consult with clinicians on opportunities to incorporate evidence-based service behaviors and communication techniques into his/her practice approach.
• Utilize an appreciative inquiry coaching model to gain commitment and elicit follow-through from clinician coaching clients. Facilitate effective behavioral change in physicians and clinical staff.
• In partnership with coaching clients, design and develop action plans and follow-up strategy to create accountability and support sustained behavior change.
• Train evidence-based service behaviors and communication techniques in both individual and group settings.
• Maintain familiarity with latest tools and research evidence for best practices in the areas of service excellence and patient communication to successfully enhance the physician-patient communication.


Provide service excellence staff training, leader coaching and process improvement support to improve physician and staff satisfaction with the work environment and patient satisfaction with their care experience:
• Collect and review patient feedback, patient satisfaction data and other pertinent data for each care center/practice/service area.
• Conduct patient and staff rounds, shadow staff-patient interactions and observe staff interpersonal skills and non-verbal communication to evaluate coaching needs and determine appropriate level of coaching engagement.
• Consult with care center/practice/service area leaders on identified opportunities for improvement. Facilitate, coach and mentor each practice in areas of development necessary to achieve the target condition.
• Utilize an appreciative inquiry coaching model to gain commitment and elicit follow-through from the care center/practice/service area leader. Facilitate effective behavioral change in management and staff.
• Train staff and leaders on evidence-based best practices for service behaviors and communication skills. Train care center/practice/service area management to assess/validate service behavior and communication skill competencies. Train care center/practice/service area management to reward/recognize and coach staff to maintain accountability and continued demonstration of service behaviors.
• Support care center/practice/service area teams in achieving measurable improvements in patient satisfaction with continued improvement over the long term.
• Serve as a coaching resource to the leaders regarding achieving service excellence and superior patient experiences.
• Leverage organization resources to support development in management competencies that may include: basic leadership skills, crucial conversation, development of behavior standards, performance reviews and accountability, staff development, reward/recognition, process improvement skills and office procedures. When consultation is needed for improvement areas that are outside the scope of service excellence’s areas of expertise, facilitate connections to appropriate internal or external resources.
• Support continuous process improvement by utilizing Lean management and process improvement methodologies where appropriate and aligning service behavior interventions with clinical and process initiatives.
• Effectively lead process change to eliminate waste and create efficient operational flow, utilizing rapid cycle improvement planning to execute plan, do, study, act initiatives.
• Design and develop action plans, accountability resources, and training resources to meet the needs for effective deployment throughout the organization.
• Maintain ongoing coaching follow-up for the duration of the action plan and until the target state is achieved and throughout a maintenance period when sustainment is validated.
• Act as a change agent to enhance culture and instill a service ethic to change long-standing behaviors of frontline workers, management and physicians. Facilitate effective behavioral change in physicians, leaders and clinical staff.
• Ensure exceptional service on an ongoing basis via an understanding of concrete behaviors required to achieve higher patient satisfaction levels for physicians, staff and management.
• Integrate lessons learned from patient feedback, patient family advisors, staff, leadership and associates to positively impact the organizational service and operational excellence culture.


Collaborate, create, coordinate, implement, facilitate and/or communicate service excellence initiatives:
• Create recommendations to prioritize care centers/practices/service areas for engagement in the service excellence initiatives.
• Develop programs and facilitate clinician training opportunities.
• Participate in the regional behavioral interviewing team to assess clinician candidates’ service behavior aptitude prior to hiring. Participate in new clinician on-boarding.
• Oversee mystery shopping activities to ensure process improvements are consistently executed with every patient every time. Measure outcomes and provide feedback to the practice/care center management.
• Round in all areas to offer “fresh eyes” and secret shop to provide feedback to leaders on service performance in their areas.
• Oversee patient story collection and sharing to continually encourage a patient-centric organizational culture.
• Establish service behavior and communication competency assessments in alignment with annual basic skills assessments.
• Establish continuity of service behaviors and accountability between staff and the patient service center.
• Create an excellent patient experience across the full continuum of care.
• Regularly communicate with and provide leadership information associated with strategies of patient satisfaction and ongoing service excellence activities/initiatives.


Facilitate report and communicate the voice of the patient to decision-makers and care providers:
• Conduct one-on-one or group setting trainings to educate care providers and leaders about the standard Sutter Health patient satisfaction measurement tools and metrics, and industry standards and trends.
• Serves as a super user for patient satisfaction vendor’s tools and other quality tools. Initiate and run reports. Conduct trainings to train care center/practice/service area leaders in the patient satisfaction vendor’s available measurement, reporting and process improvement tools.
• Interpret patient satisfaction data and mentor leaders and service excellence champions in data interpretation to identify opportunities and improvement trends.
• Work with patient family advisors to incorporate patient feedback into process improvement efforts.
• Incorporate trends in patient complaints in communication of patient feedback to management/leadership.
• Provide written monthly reports to leadership regarding current coaching activities and progress for each practice in the service excellence initiative. Report to include current outcome measures.



EDUCATION:
Equivalent experience will be accepted in lieu of the required degree or diploma

Bachelor's: Bachelors in Healthcare Admin, Human Resources, Communications, Behavioral Health, Psychology, Counseling, Training & Development, Organizational Leadership, or Performance Improvement


TYPICAL EXPERIENCE:
5 years of recent relevant experience.

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE:
Knowledge of the operations of a healthcare system and/or a medical office is required.

Knowledge of ICF Coaching Core Competencies is required.

Knowledge of Microsoft outlook, word, excel, and power-point applications in a windows environment is essential.

Ability to effectively use external sources of information (like the internet, research journals and professional affiliations) is required.

Must have verbal and interpersonal communication skills, be an effective listener with an understanding of how to influence and motivate others.

Must have proficiency with inquiry-based coaching techniques.

Must be able to develop and maintain effective relationships with physicians, management, support staff, patients and coworkers.

Proven client-customer relations skills are required.

Facilitation and presentation skills are required.

Must be able to work with people with various backgrounds and experiences.

Must have organizational, analytical and critical thinking skills, enabling an individual to work collaboratively with others at all levels of the organization.

Must have the ability to effectively deal with multiple priorities in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment.

Must be able sit for long periods of time at computer workstation.

Must be able to stand for long periods of time while conducting training sessions.

Must be able to safely lift and carry file boxes, portable laptop and projection equipment and other department related equipment or materials weighing up to 30 pounds without assistance.


PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES AND REQUIREMENTS:
See required physical demands, mental components, visual activities & working conditions at the following link: Job Requirements

Job Shift:

Days

Schedule:

Full Time

Days of the Week:

Monday - Friday

Weekend Requirements:

As Needed

Benefits:

Yes

Unions:

No

Position Status:

Exempt

Weekly Hours:

40

Employee Status:

Regular

Sutter Health is an equal opportunity employer EOE/M/F/Disability/Veterans.

Pay Range is $94,848.00 to $142,272.00 / annual salary

The compensation range may vary based on the geographic location where the position is filled. Total compensation considers multiple factors, including, but not limited to a candidate’s experience, education, skills, licensure, certifications, departmental equity, training, and organizational needs. Base pay is only one component of Sutter Health’s comprehensive total rewards program. Eligible positions also include a comprehensive benefits package.