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Episode 2: How to Become a Clinical Director of a Multidisciplinary Practice with Genevieve Drummond

About Episode

In this episode of Your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch podcast, Genevieve Drummond shares how to become a clinical director of a multidisciplinary practice.

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Episode 2

Show Notes

Kayla: Welcome back to Your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, Genevieve Drummond shares how to become a clinical director of a multidisciplinary practice.

Hi, Genevieve. Welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.  

Genevieve: Thank you so much for having me.

Kayla: Genevieve, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice journey.

Genevieve: My name is Gene Drummond, and I am currently the CEO and founder of Hummingbird Clinical Consulting. I founded my consulting agency after a career as a clinician and clinical director, and our company mission is to improve healthcare accessibility and patient outcomes, reduce clinician burnout, as well as improve patient and staff retention.



During my time in practice, I held the dual role of registered nutritionist and clinical director, and I worked in a multidisciplinary practice overseeing seven disciplines and support team members. And after brokering the sale of that practice, I would go on to build my own consulting agency where I leveraged my experience and education to help other providers optimize their clinical and administrative functions.

Kayla: Amazing. So, for listeners, what is a clinical director. And what are some of the roles of a clinical director in a multidisciplinary practice?  

Genevieve: So, in my experience, a clinical director manages both the administrative and clinical workflows to ensure excellence is upheld in patient care within that practice. But some of my key responsibilities included leadership and oversight. So, examples would be providing strategic direction and supervising, both clinical and administrative staff to promote collaboration. Team coordination would have been another responsibility of mine. So facilitating communication between all disciplines and organizing meetings for a case study discussions.

Ensuring compliance and standards. So, ensuring that we’re adhering to health care laws and managing patient safety as well as program development and resource management. What I mean by resource management is how we’re allocating resources, managing budgets, and identifying cost saving measures, as well as program development would be more aligned with creating and assessing new clinical programs just based on the practice needs and the demands of the patient roster. And working alongside the providers to help them grow.

And then, another key responsibility of mine would have been education and training. So, either setting up workshops or seminars that our practitioners or team members could attend such as professional development or organized team training.

And the last thing it’s just patient advocacy, so ensuring that all of our patients’ concerns are being met and that we’re gathering either in person or automated feedback so that we can make changes either to our workflows or our systems or how we deliver care.



Kayla: So, are there specific skills, traits, or even a specific personality type that would be best suited when becoming a clinical director?  

Genevieve: Yes, I think that specific skills or even personality types would be someone who’s empathetic, having both organizational and communication skills. I think being adaptable to changing environments, but also forward thinking is very important, and then having a self-starter attitude.

The role of a clinical director really involves overseeing your clinical operations, you’re managing teams, you’re ensuring compliance. And maintaining patient care standards. So, when I think about a clinical director and some skills that they should have, the first one that comes to mind is leadership and management skills. So being able to inspire your team members, make decisions for the entire practice ecosystem, and be able to delegate effectively would be a really important skill to have.

Clinical expertise. So, it doesn’t necessarily need to be within a specific discipline, but at least having an understanding of clinical procedures and how to evaluate care quality.

The next one that comes to mind would be communication skills, so we touched on that a little bit, but just having really strong verbal and written skills and being able to mediate conflict within a team setting. As well as any potential challenges that could arise between patient and provider.

And then, we spoke about adaptability. That’s a really great skill to have, just being able to handle changing in circumstances effectively and efficiently.

Data analysis would be another important skill, so being able to interpret both clinical and administrative data. And then be able to make changes pretty efficiently and quickly so that you can address any challenges that arise within the practice.

And then regulatory knowledge would be the last point. At least being familiar with healthcare regulations and compliance or investing time and resources to educate yourself on regulatory compliance that are discipline specific.

Kayla: So, what’s the difference between a clinical director and a clinical supervisor?  



Genevieve: So, in my opinion, I think that the role here could be nuanced based on the practice that you’re working in. So as a clinical director, in some cases, you would actually be in the discipline that you’re focused in. So, you would be really overseeing caseload, patient outcomes, and working very in depth on the clinical side. In my case, It involved a little bit of that because I did have a background as a clinician, but not discipline focused in all the ones that we had in practice.

A clinical supervisor, I think, could be categorized in two different ways. So, either a supervisor that’s actually overseeing someone’s clinical practice, like a mental health provider and a psychotherapist or a psychologist that’s overseeing and mentoring on their caseload. Or a clinical supervisor, on the other sense where you are really managing the day-to-day.

Kayla: I love that. And it sounds like to me that a clinical director has all of the same skills as a clinical supervisor, but the difference is that they have more administrative responsibility within the organizational structure. For instance, it’s a managerial role. But they do still hold those clinical supervisory roles as well.

So, what are some steps or strategies that a listener can take to become a clinical director as well as be successful at the job? In other words, are there specific systems, processes, or even workflows that might be useful within a clinical director role?

Genevieve: Yes, that’s a great question. So, in my opinion, becoming a successful clinical director requires leadership skills, a level of clinical expertise and effective system management.

Some of the key steps that I would recommend would be number one to gain either clinical expertise or experience. So, you could consider an advanced degree something like degree in health care administration or accumulate experience over time within a clinical practice in a leadership role or other relevant clinical qualifications. So, whether you’re a registered nurse, a medical doctor, a therapist, registered nutritionist, at least having experience within a clinical setting is really valuable.

The other point I would have is to develop leadership skills. So, these are often a cultivated skill and some really, I wouldn’t say easy, but a good first step into testing your leadership skills would be to volunteer in a leadership role or to attend workshops or leadership seminars. Just to really dig into your skills and hone in on that.



Another important step would be healthcare administration and understanding the ins and outs of that. So, we touched on that a little bit, but learning about regulations, quality assurance and operational management, that’s discipline focus. And you can often reach out to your provider’s associations, they’ll often have training that you can take for either clinical leaders or support team members.

And then the last point would be just to network and seek mentorship. So either connect with other clinical directors or aspiring clinical directors and find a mentor, maybe within another practice.

And the last point here that I would just talk about would be some of the key strategies for success and what you could implement if you are a clinical director now. So, I would definitely prioritize patient centered care within your practice.

The second point would be to invest in team development or training. So, this can be through either online personality assessments and integrated workshops or having a coach or a consultant come in your practice and help to train your team on team development or communication strategies to help with the ecosystem and the culture within your practice.

And then the last strategy is to utilize data driven decision making through key performance indicators. So really leaning in to whatever reporting features you may have with your EHR right now, and assessing those data points to be able to make informed decisions on how you would make changes within your practice.

Kayla: I love that. Do you have additional words of advice for listeners who want to become or are clinical directors within a multidisciplinary practice?

Genevieve: Yes, I really believe that healthcare leaders are such a valuable asset to their practices. So, some of the key qualities for success would be self awareness. So being able to recognize both your strengths and your weaknesses really helps to shape your leadership style and improves connection with your team.



The next key quality here that I would mention is communication. So, a leader being able to clearly articulate their vision and goals really aligns a team and fosters trust among that team as well as collaboration.

And I would definitely also include your leadership presence. And I know we touched on that a little bit already, but actions that you take within a practice that reflects your values really embeds integrity and accountability within a practice, and it inspires your team to really uphold a really high-level standard of patient care and administrative functions.

And then the last point I would have is just professional development. So, investing in your own growth through seminars, maybe additional certifications, even mentorship really enhances your own personal knowledge and can strengthen your leadership presence.

Kayla: Such great advice. Genevieve, you provide a unique service that you’d like to share with listeners. Can you tell us what it is and how it can help them?  

Genevieve: Yes, so we offer a comprehensive 360 practice analysis, and this really helps healthcare leaders identify pain points and challenges within their clinical and administrative operations so that they can make changes accordingly.

We offer this as a consulting service. So, we will do an initial consulting call to review our comprehensive intake form, and then we will either make recommendations for further analysis where needed and we’ll produce a road map to help them achieve their goals. So we really go through a lot of data points in clinical and administrative workflows, financial data, as well as prior sales and marketing.

Kayla: Amazing. To learn more about Genevieve’s 360 analysis, check out hummingbirdclinicalconsulting.com

Or simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Genevieve, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to become a clinical director of a multidisciplinary practice.

Genevieve: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.

Kayla: Thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on Your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch.

Until next time, bye for now.



 

Podcast Links

Genevieve’s 360 analysis: hummingbirdclinicalconsulting.com

Snap SEO: snapseo.ca

PESI Clinical Supervision Trainings: canadianclinicalsupervision.ca/pesi

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by Top Flow from Pixabay

Your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch Podcast and Evaspare Inc. has an affiliate and/or sponsorship relationship for advertisements in our podcast episodes. We receive commission or monetary compensation, at no extra cost to you, when you use our promotional codes and/or check out advertisement links.

Podcast information should not be considered professional advice and should not replace clinical supervision or consultation.

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