On the first Monday of every month, DTA convenes a community of Care Team Coaches from across the country. The purpose of these calls is for coaches who all use DTA’s Coaching Reporting Tool to share notes and learn from one another on their coaching journeys. On our most recent call, we were able to feature an interview with our very own Jen Schugel. Jen is a Senior Consultant with DTA and when she isn’t coaching, she is one of the wizards behind the curtain of all things data that DTA produces. Jen even helped build the Coaching Reporting Tool!
Here’s a look at what Jen had to share with the group.
DTA: Help us understand your role – is coaching your full-time gig or is it a part of your work? If not a full-time gig, how does it relate to your day job, if it does?
JS: My background is in IT, building clinical and patient experience analytic solutions. I build reports and dashboards that provide insight into clinical measurements and patient experience survey results. Working for DTA I have the opportunity to be able to do both data analytics and coaching. With creating patient experience dashboards and helping organizations find where their biggest areas of opportunities are, it’s fun to be able to work on the coaching side to help them make improvements in their scores and be able to track their progress in the dashboards.
DTA: Tell us about your most memorable or most difficult coaching experience.
JS: I have coached over 100 different care givers with varied roles (e.g. nurses, technicians, PAs, Residents, CNAs, etc.). But it was coaching a physician for the first time that was the most memorable for a few reasons. First, I was a bit nervous to coach a physician for the first time, and she was a Cardiologist. Thankfully she was a very nice doctor but I was still a little intimidated. However, as I was half way through the debrief she stopped me and asked how all of her physicians could go through coaching. She said that her patient experience doctor communication scores were low and wanted to improve them. With her coaching experience, she recognized the value of coaching and how it would help improve her patient experience scores. What a great feeling knowing she had such a great experience that she wanted all of her doctors to go through coaching!
Other memorable moments have been when the staff have cried during the debrief…not for bad but for good reasons! They were so thankful for the positive feedback and hadn’t heard positive feedback before.
DTA: If you had one piece of advice for a new coach, what would that be?
JS: It’s important to build a rapport with the person you are coaching to make them feel comfortable and encourage them that it’s strength-based and confidential. Coaches should also keep in mind that you won’t be coaching on all care practices. It’s most important that you meet the person where they are at and coach what is applicable to them. Finally, doing the debrief and writing the report will get easier with time.
Thanks to Jen and all participants of our monthly Coaching Community Calls! This format has been super helpful in collectively building the Coaching Community across the country. If you are interested in learning more about the DTA Coaching Reporting Tool (the use of which is common to all of the Coaches on these Community Calls), you’re in luck! Sign up to view a demo of DTA Healthcare Solutions’ Coaching Reporting Tool.
