QUESTION:        We consistently see poor attendance at our Medical Staff meetings.  It seems like our Medical Staff members are losing interest in many of the traditional Medical Staff activities, and we’re often struggling to recruit volunteers to serve on Medical Staff committees and to act in Medical Staff leadership roles.  Do you have any suggestions?

ANSWER:            This trend is becoming increasingly prevalent nationwide, so you’re not alone.  There’s no “one size fits all” solution, but we do have several recommendations.  First, focus on making your meetings as substantive as possible.  This means cutting away as many non-essentials as you can, leaving only important matters for discussion.  People are far more likely to attend a meeting if they know that it will have value to them and if they recognize that it’s focused on a specific, important purpose.

We have a similar approach to Medical Staff committees.  We frequently see Bylaws or Organization Manuals that include a lot of unnecessary committees.  These committee meetings are often poorly attended and serve only to add another layer of administrative bloat to an organization.  For this reason, we would suggest taking a careful look at your current organization structure so you can prune away all of the inessential activities.  Consolidate committees and their functions where possible (taking into account all legal requirements, of course), and make certain that Medical Staff members see value when they invest time into the Medical Staff.

When an important meeting is coming up, consider having the Chief Medical Officer or Chief of Staff send out a reminder by text message, asking each member of the Medical Staff to come and share their thoughts.  This can be a great opportunity to mention (briefly) why the meeting will be valuable and to encourage people to get more involved.

Stated simply, if you want to generate interest and increase attendance at your meetings, you need to focus on “selling” your meetings to the Medical Staff.  And selling is much easier when you have a valuable, important product – something that will help the person you’re talking to.  If you ensure that your meetings are valuable and focused on the essentials, you’ll have an easier time “selling” them to the Medical Staff and you’ll start to see more interest and attendance.

We have a lot more to say about this particular issue.  If you’d like to hear more of our thoughts and suggestions, please tune in to our audioconference on “The Incredible Shrinking Medical Staff.”  Dan Mulholland and Linda Haddad will be on hand to answer your questions and to share their insights on this increasingly common problem.  The audioconference will be from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time on April 11.

We’ll see you then.