In one year, Sentara Princess Anne Hospital's employee engagement score increased from the 60th percentile to the 81st.
Dana Weston Graves, president of the Virginia Beach, Va.-based hospital, shared insights into how this improvement was achieved.
Employee surveys, administered annually by Press Ganey, showed gains in every key area from 2023 to 2024, including resilience, safety, and diversity, equity and inclusion, Ms. Graves told Becker's.
To drive these improvements, all leaders — not just those with lower scores — developed customized action plans based on team feedback.
"No matter if you are high scoring or not, there is an opportunity for you to hear what your team is saying, and tailor your leadership, tailor your action plans to their feedback," Ms. Graves said.
Ms. Graves implemented an initiative where a QR code was posted around the hospital and included in weekly newsletters, allowing staff to submit questions directly to her.
"My executive leadership team and I have made a commitment to our team that we answer every single question, no matter what it is — and we get some interesting ones," she said. Every question is answered publicly at town halls she hosts.
This transparency has fostered trust, as staff know that no questions are omitted, Ms. Graves said.
In fireside chats, she also asks staff, "If you could change one thing, what would it be?"
"As leaders, we may think that the answer to that question is going to be about staffing or compensation," she said. "About 70% of the time, it is often something that is so solvable, so fixable, but that they didn't think was large enough to escalate up the chain."
For example, one employee mentioned that the "nine" button on a phone in their unit was not working properly.
"That led us to asking questions around the hospital and realizing that we had a ton of phones that just needed to be replaced," Ms. Graves said. "How simple is that? But it's something that was causing small frustrations day to day that we hadn't created a way for it to be heard."
Leadership also learned through surveys that night and weekend staff felt overlooked, prompting an increase in leadership rounding during those shifts and events specifically for those employees.
What has improved engagement meant for Sentara Princess Anne Hospital?
In the past year, it has seen improvements in length of stay, reduced discharge barriers, and top performance in hospital-acquired infection rates and patient experience — all linked to higher engagement, Ms. Graves said.
"It's our people that drive all those other results," she said. "And if healthcare organizations are not prioritizing the people that are coming into those buildings every single day, then you'll hit a ceiling."