In Tomorrowmind, the University of Pennsylvania’s Martin Seligman and BetterUp’s Gabriella Rosen Kellerman highlight the importance of connectivity. They describe not only how networks are important at work but also basic human connectivity, with employees who have good relationships and friendships with colleagues more productive, less stressed, and more likely to stay at the organization.
Research from Harvard Business School highlights how this can even be a matter of life and death. The researchers explored how the relationships between physicians impacted the quality of care they gave to patients, and found that strong friendships resulted in a significant improvement in the care provided to patients.
Better care
The study found that when physicians trained together, they received patient satisfaction scores that were 9% higher than those where no such relationships existed.
Physicians who trained alongside each other and established a rapport during their formative years, exhibit better patient outcomes even after many years of completing medical school or residency. This is evident in the higher probability of patients recommending these specialists.
The correlation between physician relationships and patient outcomes carries significant implications for businesses. It underscores the crucial role of personal connections and trust in enhancing performance, which often surpasses the impact of incentives and rewards. Indeed, fostering a positive work relationship could yield long-term benefits for an organization’s triumph.
“We were surprised by the magnitude of the effects,” the researchers explain. “There’s just something especially salient about these relationships.”
Relationships matter
In a bid to assess the impact of training relationships on patient outcomes, the researchers examined electronic records encompassing nearly 10,000 visits to 502 specialists within a large hospital system between 2016 and 2019.
Using a medical licensing database, they identified doctors who attended the same medical school or residency program to track first-time referrals from primary care physicians to specialists. This approach allowed the researchers to determine when physicians completed their training, which in turn helped them deduce if the doctors might have encountered each other.
They then compared patient surveys for those referred to specialists with whom their PCPs shared at least a year of overlap during training, to those referred to specialists who didn’t overlap with their PCPs in the early years. The researchers also examined a subgroup who trained in the same year and were more likely to have formed a relationship.
The authors opted to concentrate on patient ratings of specialists, as opposed to specific medical outcomes, since they represent a “critical dimension of quality” that goes beyond the clinical confines of medical specialties and is valued by the medical profession at large.
Wider implications
According to the authors, nurturing these critical relationships during formative years through team-building initiatives may have far-reaching consequences beyond hospital systems to community health centers and other settings.
In a manner reminiscent of the camaraderie formed in the military during basic training, teams that spend their early years together may seek to enhance their reputation based on these ties and take pride in demonstrating a superior level of performance when assessed by respected peers, the researchers observe.
This phenomenon may also apply to customer service in other professions, exhibiting effects similar to those seen in healthcare’s unique and systematic physician training model, and may have implications that transcend the healthcare sector.
“This research shows that specialists achieve better patient ratings when they know the generalists who refer patients to them. That is analogous to a subcontractor increasing effort when they have a deep prior relationship with the general contractor who engages them for a job,” the researchers explain. “The subcontractor appreciates the effort that they have already put in to building a relationship with the general contractor and wants to ensure that their performance builds off that solid foundation.”
Building teams
The primary finding that rigorous training fosters relationships with a positive impact on patients or customers through the cultivation of mutual accountability and shared purpose offers valuable insights for managers. Large consultancies and accounting firms have already implemented this approach by creating cohorts of new hires, who are placed on similar development paths, with shared workshops, activities, and milestones aimed at building their connections.
In healthcare and beyond, organizations could promote more extensive interactions early on in the careers of other professionals or even well into their practice. The objective would be to cultivate team-based approaches that incorporate all workers involved in a given task. In healthcare, this could involve extending team-based care to other providers such as nurses, support staff, and other healthcare personnel. It may also require team training across different institutions and systems.
“There are ways in which you can support your workforce to tap into their intrinsic motivation rather than coming up with complicated schemes for paying them based on certain performance measures,” the researchers explain. “People are social creatures. Support them so that people can be who they naturally want to be and that, then, can motivate them to do better.”
