Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan has built a cardiovascular center of excellence. Physicians there collaborate with nurses to implement hospital processes and sets goals. And physician champions are named to help oversee quality goals and needs.
Whether it's in cardiovascular service or orthopedics care, healthcare leaders have no choice but to align their physicians with the day-to-day fabric of running their hospitals if they want to succeed. And they do want to succeed. Both are crucial growth areas for hospitals.
In fact, the heart and vascular and orthopedics service lines are among the top service lines expected to have strategic significance over the next two to five years, according to a HealthLeaders Media Intelligence report [PDF]. And what's the biggest challenge to achieve service line success overall? An estimated 61% of leaders say that physician alignment is number one, the report states.
A primer on putting together a successful physician alignment strategy came into focus for me earlier this week when I was at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, for a Health Leaders Media LIVE event on cardiovascular leadership.
Beaumont has built a cardiovascular center of excellence, on the bedrock of physician and administrator collaboration. Beaumont's panelists at our event, including two physicians in white coats who rushed in from the OR, focused on a team-theme: Physician-Led. Nurse-Partnered.
Before the discussion, I toured the Beaumont facility, from its oncology wing to its pediatric center. From a glass-enclosed room, I observed the hospital's 1,600-square foot hybrid/cath lab/operating room at the Suzanne & Herbert Tyner Center for Cardiovascular Interventions, where minimally invasive, yet complex heart procedures are performed.
When I arrived, a patient was being attended to by a dozen doctors, nurses, and other staff in the OR suite. Cardiovascular surgeons led the team. It appeared to be a comfortable and spacious setting. No elbows got in the way. As a group of doctors focused on the procedure, others checked medical devices, passed instruments back and forth, and scanned overhead monitors.
At one point, a staffer in the OR did a little dance, obviously a sign that everything was going well. That's a sign that things are in alignment.
Cardiology Alignment
The Beaumont OR team focuses on building improved outcomes and patient satisfaction. Physician leadership is designated for each of the hospital system's committees, hospital officials told me. Physicians collaborate with nurses to implement hospital processes and sets goals. And physician champions are named to help oversee quality goals and needs.
The doctors take good care of patients, but hospital leaders want them to go further, by taking the time to sit in patients' rooms and listen.
Marc Sakwa, MD, chief of cardiovascular surgery at Beaumont, and physician leader of Beaumont Health System's Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence, explained how the hospital leadership opened the door for direct physician involvement. "As the leaders, you will set the goals that you need in order for all of us to be successful," the hospital told physicians, Sakwa says.
Such processes don't stop at the cardiology suite.
Orthopedics Alignment
As I prepare for the HealthLeaders Oct. 16 webcast on physician involvement in orthopedic service lines, a common theme emerges with the cardiologists: aiming for physician alignment. The orthopedics service line, like cardiology, is a large and competitive service line, with the need for evidence-based strategies and team approaches in care.
The physician alignment ingredient is essential, for better collaboration and performance, but sometimes lacking in orthopedics, says James D. Holstine, DO, of the center for orthopedics and sports medicine at PeaceHealth and St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, WA.
"For me, it's about relationships, alignments, trust, and transparency," says Holstine, one of the presenters for the upcoming webcast. Now, "I think there's less trust than there's ever been. It's not due to malcontent. It's poor communication because of the volume of change. I think the volume of information is so rapid and fast we don't have good information dissemination."
The other webcast panelist is Marshall Steele, MD, orthopedic surgery medical director of Stryker Performance Solutions. For 15 years, he was medical director of surgical business development and of the operating room at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Maryland. In 2005, Steele founded Marshall Steele & Associates.
Hospitals can establish their relationships with physicians through co-management agreements, establishing solid fiscal arrangements such as through bundled payments, and physician employment, he says.
Oh, and there's something else. Steele has been a big proponent of physicians being employed by one hospital, and not working at competing facilities.
If physicians are aligned with one hospital, they can improve quality of care, he says.
A HealthLeaders Media webcast, Orthopedics Service Line Success: Physician Engagement, Efficiency and Quality, is scheduled for October 16, 2013 from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET. Speakers are Marshall Steele, MD, orthopedic surgery medical director for Stryker Performance Solutions, and James D. Holstine, DO, of the Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center, Bellingham, WA.
Joe Cantlupe is a senior editor with HealthLeaders Media Online.
