Behavioral contract management: a prescription for employee and patient compliance.

A health care manager's responsibilities of offering efficient service while ensuring effective outcomes is hampered frequently by both employees and patients whose unacceptable behaviors are detrimental to one or both of these mandates. Behavioral contracts offer a structured method that allows both patients and employees to self-actualize the required behavioral changes. When noncompliant behavior is diagnosed, behavioral contracts are the prescription that places the responsibility for corrective action squarely on the shoulders of the offending individual.