Employee development in health care appears to have its share of successes and failures. As I have disclosed in a previous post I am not very tech savvy, and certainly not very familiar with social media platforms and the ways to optimize their use, so I am looking forward to learning from my fellow students for this assignment. After completing the assigned readings, these are my thoughts on a potential employee development plan.

1. Include a way for patients to provide their feedback to employees and programs directly using social media or a survey that is communicated back to either the employees or to the manager in real time. The front line managers for most of my programs already have weekly huddles with all the staff so small improvements can be discussed in a timely manner with all staff. We also have quality teams for most of my programs, so large scale improvement suggestions can be taken to those teams. If patients are able to share their experience in other provinces and other countries, there could be learning from what others are doing to make the patient experience positive.
2. When patients submit ideas they could be invited to be patient or family representatives on quality teams or large scale projects. This would provide opportunities for co-creation and innovation and facilitate customer (patient) empowerment. Although this would not use technology directly, there should be a way to recognize patients for their contributions on a social media platform, website, or other means. If patients or families submit a suggestion for improvement and that change is implemented there should be an electronic feedback loop to that person that indicates that changes were made based on their suggestions. This would communicate to patients/families that their input is valued and acted on. Although not an internal organizational citizen behaviour, this could potentially lead to customers/patients speaking highly of their health care once discharged.
3. Have a way for patients to rate their provider. This is already available in an electronic format for physicians at RateMD.  Because of the number of healthcare professionals in our organization with varying education levels I would suggest that this direct feedback has potential to be useful for other self-regulated professionals, but any paraprofessionals or unregulated professionals I would suggest that the feedback only come back to the manager. As the literature suggests that different employees require different levels of feedback it is anticipated that this type of feedback would not be very useful for any provider without a professional background. For professionals, develop a way for the rankings to be de-identified and then presented in a way so that each employee can see how they compare to others in their ranking. This has the potential to be an internal motivator for professionals to improve in patient service in comparison to their colleagues. Recognition of employees who are consistently getting high rankings could influence customer focused citizen behaviour.
4. Also develop a technological platform for customers/patients to rank the facility, program or service in real time. Develop an app that every patient or family member can access to rank or comment on their overall experience. Again, develop a way for the rankings to be de-identified and then made available so that the managers and employees can visualize how they compare with other facilities or programs of a similar size.
5. Develop a platform that enables employees to provide peer feedback on each other. This could be set up on an internal SharePoint site with a notification sent every time someone submits a comment or feedback. As a disclaimer, I think that this would be difficult to monitor as it would need to be set up in a way ensure that the peer feedback is constructive and useful. If employees are permitted to submit anonymous feedback, this could potentially be destructive or lead to negative organizational citizen behaviours. If employees are not permitted to remain anonymous, they may not wish to come forward with any feedback that would be useful for employee development.
6. Develop a platform for employees to provide improvement ideas to management or senior leaders in real time. Often staff have great ideas but they get forgotten, or if they do get shared with their manager, they get lost due to the operational concerns of the day to day business. Ensure that when ideas are put forward that multiple people and departments receive notification (ie. The quality department, any other department who may be affected) so that those who are able to act on innovative ideas are able to more forward quickly. This would create greater momentum and staff engagement. Staff who bring forward innovative ideas would also need to be recognized to encourage the culture of creativity and idea generation.   This would create a culture of employee support and a positive organizational citizen behaviour.  Where possible, employees would also need to be empowered to make changes with patients/families without having to go through a manager for authorization every time.
7. Develop a technological platform in which employees are able to complete self-assessments, upload formal and informal learnings, post a learning or development plan, and request performance evaluations outside of the regular schedule. This would be a personal platform that only the employee can access with some limited permissions given to the manager to permit feedback where requested.

Because of my limited knowledge of technologies these are a few suggestions that are likely in use right now in other sectors, but only recently incorporated, or not utilized in health organizations. I look forward to reading the innovative and creative ideas that are being suggested in other contexts and any suggestions for my health care environment.