We’re delighted to share a conversation with Jeff Bacon, DO, Chief Medical Officer at Banner Health! Dr. Bacon shares the impact of building culture, raising clinical standards, and fostering effective leadership in healthcare.
- Can you tell us one of your favorite patient stories from working in medicine?
Because I love stories…. When I was transitioning from my clinical family practice role to a more full-time administrative role, on my last clinical day, these kids whom I had taken care of since birth sent me off with their impersonation of me. They wore their glasses like mine, put on gloves and yelled, “I’m Dr. Bacon” as I walked in the door. What a great reminder that we as leaders will always have someone watching, and it is up to us to role model the skills, behaviors and mindset we share and teach to others.
- How long have you been in health care, and what are your favorite parts about it?
I have been with Banner Health in Sterling for the last 25 years. 18 as a clinical family practice provider and 10 as a Chief medical officer and Divisional medical director. My favorite part of work is matching the right providers to the right teams in the right rural space within Banner. This builds excellent cultures where teams thrive in giving safe and quality care to the communities in which they serve. It has been amazing to be a part of the commitment to the rural teams and communities building the same highly reliable standards and expectations as urban facilities and communities. In the rural setting, we are small enough to know and see most of our patients on a more personal level so it is gratifying to know that your family, friends and community will be receiving an expected excellence in care.
- What are your favorite parts of leading a health care team?
My favorite parts of leading a team includes supporting and watching providers grow into their own clinical practices and developing their own clinical style or when they realize, they too, have a passion for leadership. This includes supporting their growth and development as they care for the community, inspiring these providers to learn and grow in their own careers. If there is a desire for leadership setting up leadership opportunities them to grow through our leadership education and resources in Banner. These leaders are the future.
- What areas has your team improved most? How do you know?
Our teams have focused on excellent patient care in all places every time. With this focus, we can look to measurements such at patient experience, quality measures, access to care and even employee surveys to measure our success. We encourage teams to build actionable plans to continue and sustain a culture of support and positive growth.
- What have you done to engage your clinicians to prevent this feeling like “one more thing?”
With the support of our resources within Banner, we have the opportunity to build and grow standardized best practices applied to the autonomy of a rural facility. We choose to meet with our teams regularly to understand and learn from our opportunities to improve and implement best practices. From our teams across multiple rural spaces we can learn where there may be obstacles or pebbles that may get in the way of success for our providers and implement best practices from other teams who may have been through similar experiences. With a mindset directed toward growth and great communication, instead of one more thing, we switch the focus to how to understand the why behind a situation, how this applies to my situation and what we can actively do to make our community not only a great place to work but a great place to receive care for our own community.
- In what ways have you seen your clinicians implement tips into their work?
Through team based approach, learning about ourselves and how we show up, we work on building growth and positive feedback that set our providers and teams on the path to excel at patient experience and build great long lasting relationships with patients. Building excellent communication skills by asking great questions, actively listening, giving great clarity and closing the loops of communication build a shared care model with patients, families and teams.
Nick Chicchetti is a Marketing Specialist at Practicing Excellence, specializing in developing, implementing, and analyzing marketing strategies and development of content. He brings over five years of healthcare marketing experience, and has a passion for driving change and improving experiences across the healthcare continuum.
