Identifying High Performing Physicians

In today’s evolving healthcare environment, patients are more knowledgeable, more involved and more responsible for their healthcare costs. Because of this, their expectations regarding their health care experience are higher than ever before. At the heart of this health care experience is the human moment or the one-on-one interaction between the patient and their Doctor. Identifying physician candidates who exhibit behaviors similar to those physicians who consistently receive high patient satisfaction scores is an important component to delivering an enhanced patient experience.   The Physician Interview Tool helps medical groups and institutions achieve this goal.


Objectives

The intent of the Physician Interview Tool is to increase consistency and reliability for hiring physicians with high patient satisfaction tendencies. Through the use of key phrases and examples, the tool allows interviewers to increase their awareness of these predictive behaviors. This tool was developed and validated based on an extensive four-phase research process. This research was conducted in collaboration with several medical groups to ensure viability across multiple formats and geographies, i.e. a staff model in an urban area, a teaching institution, and a multi-specialty group in a rural geography. 
 

Components

The tool is modular in design and easily integrates into an institutions’ current interviewing process by complimenting the clinical and personnel components. It is short to administer taking on average less than 20 minutes and provides a consistent means for evaluating a physician candidate. This tool is comprised of the following components:
  • Interview Questions: Series of questions segmented by common traits highlighting behaviors exhibited by physicians who score high on standardized patient satisfaction surveys.
  • Assessment Guide:  A scoring form used during the interview to capture relevant input and to rate a candidate’s responses; thus allowing for consistent scoring of physician candidates in the area of patient interaction.
  • Rating Guide: Provides examples of excellent to weak answers as a comparative tool.
  • Training Module: An interactive training module that highlights the background research, reviews the components of the tool, and provides an opportunity to practice using the tool in role-play scenarios. 
 

Validation Results

The results from the Physician Interview Tool’s validation research were very strong and indicate that the tool both accurately predicts patient satisfaction and does not overestimate physician performance in this critical domain.
  • The tool received a 72% exact match rate between the quintiles of a physician’s actual patient satisfaction scores and the interviewing team’s predictive assessment.   The majority of non-exact matches varied by only one quintile with a bias toward the physician scoring better than what the interviewers predicted. 
  • The tool was also validated from a usability perspective, when during the fourth phase of research the physician interviewers commented that “The experience [with using the tool] validated what we learned in the training module.”
  • The tool has proven to be effective across multiple physician specialties including family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, cardiology, podiatry and psychiatry.