How to engage doctors in your QI projects
QI/TQM recently asked Frederic W. Platt, MD, how quality improvement specialists, especially those in hospitals, can do a better job of involving physicians in QI initiatives. In spite of how it might seem, Platt insists, "Doctors care intensely about this stuff. However, they have far too much to do in the time they have. They’re always late." When we ask a doctor to participate in a QI project, we’re asking for the most precious gift they have — their time.
How can you diffuse a defensive response?
Your request for time is less likely to meet resistance if you season it with anticipatory empathy: "I need to ask you for a really big favor, and it’s probably the last thing you want to do with your Saturday afternoon." Anticipatory empathy transports you into awareness of the enormity of the gift you seek while it conveys your understanding to the doctor.
Once granted the gift of time, respect it!
Platt describes five powerful ways to honor time given to QI initiatives:
1. Present important topics.
2. Start and finish meetings on time. Make every minute in between count.
3. Pay participants the respect of using their input on things that matter.
Believe it or not, administrators have great power in the eyes of the physicians, Platt adds. "If an administrator says, and means, Our No. 1 objective is not to get more patients, or increase billings, or to put in more services to increase business, but to make this the best hospital in the country and let the business find us,’ you’ll get the physicians to support it."
4. Pour real resources into QI programs.
Staff them with power holders, not "flak catchers," he cautions. If administrators take improvement seriously, quality managers will have no trouble recruiting physicians. It helps if administrators habitually make the rounds of the facility to stay in touch with the service providers.
5. Consider the physicians your best source of QI information.
To tap the flow, ask them to show you what’s working and what’s not. Then to keep the tap open, Platt adds, "Make notes, and tackle one problem at a time. When you show the doctors how you have used their input, you’ll get their eager involvement the next time."
[For more information, contact: Frederic Platt, MD, 1901 E. 20th Ave., Denver, CO 80205. Telephone: (303) 377-2759. Fax: (303) 333-9262. E-mail: [email protected].]
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