At Kendall Regional Medical Center improving hospital physician relations is everyone’s responsibility. As Director of Physician Relations, I serve as both an advocate and a liaison between the hospital administration, staff, the physicians and their office staffs. From the initial acceptance of privileges, we provide physicians with a complete orientation that includes a tour of the hospital, overview of the physician & office policies & procedures manual, and training on our online and meditech patient access systems. Throughout the length of their privileges at our hospital, physicians are visited in their private practices so that we can provide updates on new programs, staff education opportunities, practice support initiatives, or answer any questions (or resolve any problems that have arisen). Additionally, we provide assistance in marketing practices and information resources, as well as opportunities for lectures and radio programs that can be used as a means of educating the public or to promote the physician in the community. We also offer quarterly breakfasts for the office managers. On March 24th we will have our next quarterly Office Managers Breakfast, which will feature a representative from Medicare who will provide an interactive session on educating beneficiaries on the best plan to meet their needs.

The ultimate outcome of any physician relations effort is the generation of new business for the hospital or to at least counter the proactive efforts of our competitors. The most critical aspect of a successful physician relations program is the interaction between key hospital personnel and the physicians. At Kendall Regional Medical Center, our CEO Victor Maya realizes that if we want the loyalty and business of the medical staff, we need to be prepared to understand their needs and wants in order to develop meaningful programs. Our CEO influences and supports my role as liaison and interacts well with the hospital staff in our problem solving efforts. As liaison, it is important to understand and appreciate the challenges faced by our physician customers. Our goal at Kendall Regional is to improve hospital, physician and staff communication in order to provide the best quality services and retain referrals to our hospital.