Creating Conditions to Motivate a Staff of Busy Clinicians

Listen Now:

Healthcare Experience Foundation (HXF) Executive Coach, Deborah Zastocki, DNP, Ed.M., MA, RN, NEA-BC, FACHE, joins our program this week. We are pleased to welcome her back to our podcast for a chat about creating conditions to motivate clinicians in busy environments.

It’s no secret that staff retention in healthcare is pivotal. According to Dr. Zastocki, the severe consequence of failing to retain staff include the following:

Decreased staff morale
Patient safety and staff safety risks (because processes are disrupted)
Decreased productivity
Serious financial impacts

“When you think about staff retention, the next logical thing is staff engagement…teamwork and communication have to be top priorities for patient and staff safety,” she said.

Finding a balance and joy at work can be some of the hardest challenges of all, but in the calling of health care, it cannot be overlooked. As leaders, we cannot fail the folks who give so much to other people, Dr. Zastocki told us.

“In health care, we give so much to others, so our workforce needs to feel like they are cared for and cared about as part of this whole piece,” Dr. Zastocki pointed out.

When it comes to asking ourselves about how to motivate a staff of busy clinicians, Dr. Zastocki believes we need to reconsider the essence of that question in the first place.

“I would say we probably should reframe the question; we really should be asking how we can create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves,” she said.

Dr. Zastocki did not mince words when asked if a motivated and engaged workforce will provide better care.

“I believe they will, particularly in the long term. You’re going to have improved retention, improved teamwork, and communication. Staff will be willing to extend themselves in these discretionary efforts to do the little extra things,” she said.

“I think most importantly, motivated staff, I believe, are more willing to adapt and be agile to help create new health care delivery systems, which we know is going to be the nature of the world we live in.”

In September 2022, Dr. Zastocki made her first appearance on our podcast to discuss leadership’s role in easing turnover. You can listen to that episode here:

How Leadership Behavior Helps Reduce Employee Turnover

Watch Today’s Podcast

You can watch this podcast here:

More HX Matters Podcasts

The last five episodes of the Healthcare Experience Matters Podcast are available here:

Our podcast is dedicated to transforming the health care experience so that every person can receive and deliver the best care.

You can subscribe to our podcast for free on all major podcast platforms and for video of our interviews, you can always check out the Healthcare Experience Foundation (HXF) on YouTube. Catch up on all episodes of our podcast by subscribing and following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music and more.

Learn More About Today’s Guest

Deborah Zastocki, DNP, Ed.M., MA, RN, NEA-BC, FACHE, is an Executive Coach with the Healthcare Experience Foundation and the Founder and President of Legacy Healthcare Management Consulting in North Carolina. She has accumulated extensive experience as a healthcare executive by leading organizations through strategic planning, innovative new community services, hospital, and foundation board governance, developing alliances with other healthcare systems as well as organizational mergers.

Formerly, Dr. Zastocki was the president and CEO of Chilton Medical Center, in Pompton Plains, NJ and successfully led the organization and medical staff by developing and implementing prescriptive and focused strategic plans. She maintains board member and board leadership status on not for profit, for profit, academic, and professional boards at both the state and national levels. She has also authored an article about transforming board governance in healthcare.

She received her BSN from the University of Rhode Island; both Masters’ degrees from Teachers College Columbia University, and her DNP from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ. Dr. Zastocki has accrued over 30 years of experience in healthcare where her professional career has emphasized a clinical and professional journey from clinical nurse to nurse executive roles, author, academic educator, and healthcare executive.

Her multifaceted experience provides her the ability to authoring professional educational solutions, national presentations, healthcare consulting, organization and leadership transformational change, physician engagement, and executive, business and personal coaching.