Incentive Program Supports Educational, Patient Care Goals for Resident Physicians

Administrators should also focus goals on areas in which residents have the most influence. If residents feel like they can't directly affect the metric, then it's more difficult for them to take meaningful steps toward achieving the goal.

The GME office surveyed residents about which areas they directly influence and consider important. This survey helped leadership conceive the third goal to improve pain management.

Last, take advantage of existing data collection systems, says Baron. For example, the patient satisfaction and pain management goals are based on questions taken from patient satisfaction surveys that UCSF Medical Center distributed before the advent of the incentive program. The quality department assesses the order-writing goal during compliance audits.

In the future, Baron hopes to include specialty-specific goals in the program.

Julie McCoy is the associate editor for the Residency department at HCPro, Inc. For more GME-related news, please visit www.residencymanager.com.