Healthcare organizations should focus on what worked — not just what went wrong — when giving feedback to staff, according to a new study. Centering feedback on positives could help organizations including long-term care communities improve their work culture, the study published Monday in The Journal of General Internal Medicine found.
A team of researchers from Mass General Brigham evaluated peer-to-peer positive feedback, collected when caring for a dying patient as part of a mandatory mortality review process. It looked at survey responses from 388 doctors, 212 nurses, 64 advanced practice providers and 1 respiratory therapist at four Mass General Brigham hospitals.
The team found that when it looked at what went right — as opposed to what went wrong — this was a feasible way to boost mutual appreciation among healthcare workers and to provide valuable information to leadership on the hospital’s culture. The positive feedback in medicine, neurology, hospice/palliative care, and surgery focused on taking care of the patients. In emergency medicine, the feedback focused on expertise and composure.
About 20% of healthcare workers provided positive feedback. The healthcare workers gave the most positive feedback on patient- and family-centered care; provider expertise and composure; and empathy from peers and team collaboration. Most positive feedback acknowledged specific individuals, and nurses provided the most feedback across roles compared to other clinicians.
Some limitations: Researchers didn’t gather outcome data on adverse events, operational efficiency, or clinician well-being or attrition.
“Our study provides rich, qualitative data that highlight the amazing work that our clinicians provide on a daily basis,” Isaac Chua, MD, a palliative care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lead author, said. “Systematic collection and sharing of positive feedback is a grassroots, low-cost intervention that can help health care leadership understand and improve workplace culture based on the value system of its employees. Receiving and sharing this feedback may also help healthcare workers feel more valued at work, which may protect them against burnout and attrition.”
