Organization for the Outpatients: Daily Huddles in the Congenital Heart Clinic Leads to Increased Employee Engagement and Streamlined Clinic Days

Background: Communication and staff engagement are priorities in the healthcare setting. Our ambulatory care specialty clinic had grown over the past year, servicing 10,000 patients per year at 8 locations across the region. As our clinical service grew, we noted an opportunity to improve communication with our staff and providers on a daily basis.

Intervention tool, etc: We developed a template to organize daily staffing and census. This is displayed electronically and reviewed with a daily morning huddle. Team members who are off-campus call in to participate in the huddle. Staff are given opportunity to review areas for concern during the clinical day at all of our locations in one setting.

Outcomes: Since implementation of this model, we have seen our employee engagement scores improve drastically. Pediatric cardiology received the highest employee engagement scores in pediatrics (leader index 96/100). Our patient experience scores have remained elevated at 98-100%. Although these scores are multifactorial, we believe that the organizational foundation of the daily global huddle has had a significant factor in our clinical success.

Conclusion: A clinic morning huddle for a division with many locations is the single most effective meeting that a team can have.