Crosstraining! Quite a few benefits to crosstraining a team but I would like to share my philosophy on one of the best benefits:
During the pandemic, when there was a strain on our workflow at Gramercy Surgery Center, we found that crosstraining our team members by coaching them up on all aspects within their department/section allowed that team to stay operational—despite a dip in personnel numbers or growth in the business volume. There were very clear examples where crosstraining WITHIN a section allowed us to maintain the workflow, such as on our clinical team, where an individual’s proficiency across the entire perioperative process and across a dozen surgical specialties provided our clinical leaders with flexibility in staffing during difficult times.
However, my favorite benefit from crosstraining is a bit more subtle and comes about when members of our team train OUTSIDE their department. We’ve recently encouraged our administrative “back office” and “front office” teams to shadow our clinical team. What we think results is one department’s appreciation for the impact of their work on another department (and vice versa). Pictured here is a portion of our Revenue Cycle and Scheduling teams who often interact over the phone with patients and surgeons before/after surgery. But by periodically training with our clinical team at the point of care, they have been able to identify firsthand ways to improve the overall workflow in a manner that improves our service to the NYC community.
Thank you to the leaders at Gramercy who continue to give their best to our patients, surgeons, and other members of our team! – Austin Cheng, CEO
