Medical Practice
Medical Practices Are Going Hybrid
Physician Practices Are Increasingly Adopting Hybrid And Remote Work Models; Yet, They Are Hardly Prepared!
Not very long ago, I wrote a short piece about 2022 trends in medical practice workflow going hybrid. The report's title was "Medical Practices Amid Rising Demand For Hybrid Work Model in 2022." Within the article, I referred to the Stat poll by the Medical Practice Management Organization (MGMA), indicating that medical practices often shifted some of their non-clinical workflows, like billing and prior authorization tasks, to be done remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, after the ease of the pandemic still, most medical practices are keeping their selected workflows remote.
It is imperative to acknowledge from the writing that despite many advantages associated with the remote work prototype or hybrid (remote and on-site work) model, the lack of proper logistic infrastructure renders its implementation somewhat challenging.
Within this essay, I present a different yet relevant view on the issue of the hybrid work model. How unprepared our current system is for such a potentially beneficial undertaking, which, if not approached with caution, may risk physician alienation from the whole concept of remote work. That is the epitome of the rebound effect we already see concerning Electronic Health Records. (EHR)
Hybrid Way of Working Is The Future For Medical Practices
The flexible work style that offers employees some blended on-site, on-the-go, and remote options helps improve productivity.
Based on the MGMA Stat poll, such flexibility may be the upshot of accounting for cultural employee factors.
Similarly, according to a report from Axios, millennials are the core drivers of the hybrid work model option. The survey finds over 56% of workers support hybrid or remote working methods. Amongst them, 84% constitute millennials.
Indeed, the hybrid work model comes with many potential benefits. Advantages include helping workers balance their personal life with their professional endeavors. It alleviates stresses associated with work commute and exclusion of work location distance from the list of choices.
Companies that embrace a hybrid work model are more inclined to hire people from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Likewise, they save on significant expenses, like electricity bills and real estate.
Logically, remote work lowers the commute, thus reducing the greenhouse effects, making it an ideal option for those who care about global warming.
Remote work supports initiatives that uphold sustainability, anything from economic development and lessened inequalities.
The hybrid work model supports medical staff productivity and performance. Virtual work leads to rarer work interruptions, fewer workplace politics, a quieter noise level, and shorter yet more efficient meetings.
Adding all the benefits together and converging them on employees' life, without a doubt, hybrid work makes happier and healthier work-life and medical staff.
Implementing Hybrid Work Environment For Medical Practices Comes With a Sundry Of Challenges Too!
Despite all the benefits and bonuses associated with the hybrid work pinnacle, on the downside, one can point to ten challenges that every medical practice must deal with day in and day out. These include:
- Managing projects
- Building and maintaining trust among staff
- Working from different locations, and time zones
- Remote collaboration dilemma
- Inefficient tracking of tasks and productivity snags
- Dealing with language and cultural differences
- Maximizing productivity
- Overcoming distractions
- Staying motivated
- Knowing when to unplug from work
All of the above challenges, indeed, raise legitimate concerns. And although one can come up with various reasons to explain why these challenges chaperone, almost every virtual worker boils down to one fact.
The remote virtual work atmosphere is utterly disconnected from the real-life static environment and dynamic workflow!
Those who work remotely are often out of touch with the office dynamics.
That factor is essential to establishing rapport between medical staff and conforming personal connections while making workflow diligence seamless.
The Remote Work Model Needs a Flexible Logistics Infrastructure.
The hybrid medical practice work model combines remote and on-site execution of identical tasks. To the same breadth, a hybrid platform that intends to accommodate remote work must, at the very least, be able to replicate and simulate the on-site workflow over cyberspace.
The human mind's orientation to time, place, and person in "virtual Space" also should synch with the actual "physical clinic space." That is if we address most of the ten challenges of the hybrid work model.
When we talk about the hybrid workflow model, we must take immediate care not to confuse ourselves with remote and on-site work as two separate issues.
The hybrid work model comes as a single unit, and one must deal with it as a unique concept. In other words, what transpires in a medical practice that has taken up a hybrid system happens precisely in the same manner, virtually and physically. There is only one significant difference between the latter two scenarios, with in-person interaction encounters happening face-to-face by physical contact and remote encounter transpiring via video conferencing tools.
Medical Practices Are Not Completly Ready For Hybrid Encounter, But They Will Be Soon!
The answer to the challenges associated with the hybrid medical practice work model rests in the logistic infrastructural reform—the kind of framework that is robust, scalable, interactive, transparent, and, most of all, accountable.
Modern medical practices need a system that adapts flowlessness, builds trust between its partakers, and promotes collaboration where its virtual workflow streams in tandem with its in-person counterpart. It must strive to support workplace dynamics within which some workers may be on-site and some online but all experience the same workflow.