title: Hospital-physician relations: the relative importance of economic, relational and professional attributes to organizational attractiveness.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Belgian hospitals face a growing shortage of physicians and increasingly competitive market conditions. In this challenging environment hospitals are struggling to build effective hospital-physician relationships which are considered to be a critical determinant of organizational success.
  
  
  METHODS
  Employed physicians of a University hospital were surveyed. Organizational attributes were identified through the literature and two focus groups. Variables were measured using validated questionnaires. Descriptive analyses and linear regression were used to test the model and relative importance analyses were performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The selected attributes predict hospital attractiveness significantly (79.3%). The relative importance analysis revealed that hospital attractiveness is most strongly predicted by professional attributes (35.3%) and relational attributes (29.7%). In particular, professional development opportunities (18.8%), hospital prestige (16.5%), organizational support (17.2%) and leader support (9.3%) were found to be most important. Besides these non-economic aspects, the employed physicians indicated pay and financial benefits (7.4%) as a significant predictor of hospital attractiveness. Work-life balance and job security were not significantly related to hospital attractiveness.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study shows that initiatives aimed at strengthening physicians' positive perceptions of professional and relational aspects of practicing medicine in hospitals, while assuring satisfactory financial conditions, may offer useful avenues for increasing the level of perceived hospital attractiveness. Overall, hospitals are advised to use a differentiated approach to increase their attractiveness to physicians.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, De Pintelaan 185, Gent B-9000, Belgium. jeroen.trybou@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Trybou
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gemmel
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Van Vaerenbergh
authors.forename: Lieven
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Annemans
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001530:Belgium; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D018578:Hospital-Physician Relations; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult