Does this mean we're engaged?

Engagement is hot. I don't mean a ring and a date. Instead, I mean employee, doctor, doctor-patient, patient and customer engagement.

Unfortunately, like in many relationships, what being engaged means varies from person to person. The latest twist on the theme is "quiet quitting"

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.?The world has an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.

Though companies and leaders worldwide recognize the advantages of engaging employees?-- and many have instituted surveys to measure engagement -- employee engagement has barely budged in well over a decade.

Gallup has been tracking?employee engagement in the U.S. since 2000. Though there have been some slight ebbs and flows, less than one-third of U.S. employees have been engaged in their jobs and workplaces during these 15 years. According to Gallup Daily tracking,?32% of employees?in the U.S. are engaged -- meaning they are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace. Worldwide, only?13% of employees?working for an organization are engaged.

The percentage of workers who are "actively disengaged" -- those who have miserable work experiences and spread their unhappiness to their colleagues -- remained at approximately the same engagement level. It was 14% in June compared to 13% in early May. This drops the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees from 3.0-to-1 to 2.2-to-1 in the U.S., the lowest ratio since 2016. These findings are based on a random sample of 2,687 full- and part-time U.S. employees working for an employer from June 1-14, 2020.

Amid a tight labor market and nationwide labor shortage, healthcare organizations already have their work cut out when it comes to filling vacant roles and retaining staff. What’s worse, engagement among healthcare employees is declining––fast.?

That’s according to a recent?Gallup poll?that found engagement among all American workers was in a free fall. In fact, healthcare workers had the greatest engagement decline across industries, dropping nine points from early 2021 to early 2022. Engagement has even fallen among healthcare managers––from 2021 to 2022, engagement dropped seven points, but has since rebounded three points in early 2022.

The findings are a reverse from years of rising engagement before the COVID-19 pandemic. Employee engagement saw its first annual decline in a decade in 2021, Gallup found, with a drop from 36% engaged employees in 2020 to 34% in 2021. Overall, the ratio of engaged employees to disengaged employees is 1.9 to 1, compared to 2.1 to 1 in 2021 and 2.6 to 1 in 2020. 2019 represented a record high for engagement, when that ratio was 2.7 to 1.

“This pattern has continued into early 2022, as 32% of full- and part-time employees working for organizations are now engaged, while 17% are actively disengaged, an increase of one percentage point from last year,” Gallup noted.

Here are six questions employees should ask of themselves, not their employers, to increase engagement.

Physician engagement usually refers to whether or not doctors are aligned with organizational objectives and missions and have some institutional loyalty and affiliation.

Here is a case study in how one organization improved physician and nurse engagement.

Patient engagement typically means how involved they are in taking care of themselves, complying with recommendations and ridding themselves of toxic behaviors that, theoretically, would lower the costs of care and improve outcomes. That said, probably the most important measure of engagement is the Net Promoter Score i.e. whether your patients are you advocates and how likely is it that they would recommend your company/product/service to a friend or colleague?

Patient engagement, however, does not necessarily mean patient activation, which has been shown to be correlated with better outcomes for less cost.

In other words, some patients are willing and able to partner in their care. However, for those who are, the bigger challenge is to move them from awareness to intention to decision to action. Because the goal is to change doctor and patient behavior, some feel that digital health is a behavioral science.

The life sciences industry is moving beyond core patient services to the next generation of engagement platforms that seamlessly span the entire patient life cycle to help improve health outcomes.

Doctor-patient engagement, what we used to call the doctor-patient relationship, is about creating a deeper level of understanding. interaction and communication.

Many sick care engagement experts are working under some fundamental but questionable assumptions:

1. Education creates engagement
2. Engagement changes doctor and patient behavior
3. Behavior change is lasting and results in lower costs and improved outcomes
4. The doctor-patient relationship is a critical component of compliance and adherence
5. Continuity of care is essential for most patients
6. Physician employees are engaged more than the average population of employees
7. We all agree on the definition of patient engagement and we'd know it when we see it
8. The doctor experience and engagement has nothing to do with the patient experience and engagement
9. Physician employee loyalty and institutional affiliation is high on their list of other professional affiliations
10. Most patients are willing and able to participate in their care, even though they prefer a doctor who is patient-centered

Here's how people are using patient engagement tools and the main barriers.

Unfortunately, while there are specific examples of success, most attempts at creating behavior change through engagement have been disappointing.

Getting engaged just isn't as simple as it used to be. It takes a whole lot more than just a ring and a date.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs

Updated 8/2022