Once again we were honored to have three accomplished medical directors join us for a webinar to discuss their ideas and insights on how to best share unblinded process metrics with clinical teams.
The panelists were:
- Rajender Agarwal, MD, MBA — VP of Clinical Variation and Hospital Based Services for Lifepoint Health
- Douglas Lee, MD, FAAEM, FACEP — Medical Director of Emergency Medicine for Lee Health in Ft. Myers, Florida
- James Lehman, MD — Hospitalist Clinical Program Medical Director at SSM Health Wisconsin
Our own Medical Lead and Head of Clinical Variation Michael van Duren, MD, MBA joined us at the last minute to facilitate the conversation in the place of Stephanie Trees, who suddenly had lost her voice. Thank you, Michael for jumping in with almost no notice!
Exploring best practices
What we had hoped to accomplish with the webinar was to meet these learning objectives:
- Best practices for providing trustworthy individualized data, including accurate attribution
- How to use unblinded data to engage clinicians in group discussion
- How to create a safe environment for learning and growth
- How to increase buy in for reducing unnecessary clinical variation
Key takeaways
All three of our panelists have interesting backstories about how they ended up in their leadership positions and all three have different journeys with data and sharing that data. You can get that background on the recording (link below). Once into the discussion, here are just a few of the takeaways, largely in their own words.
How do you lead meetings?
Which metrics do you choose?
How do you facilitate?
Dr. Agarwal started out and focused on the data. He said, “Choosing the right process metric to discuss is key. It must be both predictive of the outcome you want and also be influenced (actionable) by the team.”
Dr. Lee and Dr. Lehman shared that same sentiment. Dr. Lee commented that “We found that the metrics that interest us the most have the most clear cut tangible benefits, those that are actionable, and those which are under our purview.” Dr. Lehmen added, “The biggest issue with data is attribution. Whether blinded or unblinded, clinicians want accurate data. You need a transparent method for how each metric is determined.”
Dr. Lehman also had a unique way of involving physicians in the discussions. “We identify the high performers and ask them to reflect a few days in advance [of a group meeting] and then ask them to share with the group. Sometimes they were a high performer all along and other times they were low or average on a metric, but then made a change to their practice and improved a lot. They can talk about what they did.”
Advice for those getting started?
Each of the panelists had thoughts for leaders just getting started with using process metrics in team meetings. Dr. Lehman started out by stressing how important it is to “Have really strong clinical leadership involved upfront. Have clinicians lead rather than an administrator. Focus on the quality of the attribution. Make sure clinicians know where it’s coming from. Know why each metric is important. Why is it important to patients? To the department? Be clear on how that data is going to be used.”
Dr. Agarwal had a very practical suggestion: “My advice when choosing your first metrics: Do not ask 'What is most important?,' but rather, ask 'Where is the greatest opportunity for improvement?'”
Dr. Lee focused on establishing trust. “It comes back to trust. You have to establish trust that this process is for their edification, informational. If they (the clinicians) want to change, we will help them change. We are here to facilitate that. More carrot than stick. No matter what, there will be resistance to change.”
Dr Lee did add, “Sooner or later, we noticed that even the resistant [clinicians] want to see how they are doing in relation to the group — purely out of curiosity.”
So much more
This post touches on just a few of the key points the panelists covered. For the full discussion, click the link below. In the meantime, if you have any questions for the panelists or for us, please send us a message via our contact us form.
Thanks for your interest in improving how we deliver healthcare. 
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