medical staff committee

May 2, 2019

Posted on by hortyspringer

QUESTION:        To celebrate all 2019 college graduates, here’s the Question of the Week from the HLE about Tia going off to college, four years ago, coming to you courtesy of HLE University.  Let’s see if you can pass! — I was recently appointed as chair of a medical staff committee and am very happy, but I just realized that instead of merely attending meetings, I’ll have to run them, so I’m also extremely nervous.  Help!!!

ANSWER:            Did you graduate from old HLE U?  Let’s find out.

An efficient meeting is the key to making it an effective meeting, and running a meeting is hard work. Here are some tips:

Tip #1. Start on time. This is one of the most important tips. If a meeting isn’t started on time, chances are it won’t end on time, and that has consequences which we’ll discuss below. If a meeting always starts on time, the attendees will more than likely be there on time, since no one likes to walk into a meeting late, and being late disrupts the meeting.

Tip #2. Limit the conversation. What “limit the conversation” means is that if a couple of attendees in the room are making the same point, over and over again, that’s unproductive, so the chair should step in and say “Ok, any other points of view that we haven’t discussed yet?” Also, if a discussion “drifts,” the chair should step in and restate the purpose of the discussion. This can be hard to do, but it is a skill that needs to be developed. Otherwise, the participants start thinking the meeting is a waste of time, and the downward spiral begins.

Tip #3. Take an issue off-line. There are times when a meeting is getting bogged down because no one has the information needed to make a decision. For example, is the bylaws revision being discussed required by an accreditation standard? A best practice? If no one knows for sure, further discussion will not help the committee make a decision, so that issue should be taken off the agenda until the next meeting, to research the issue. Better yet, ask all members to prepare in advance.

Another reason to take an issue off the agenda is when there are so many conflicting points of view that the issue won’t be able to be resolved at the meeting. The chair knows that no matter how much more discussion there is, the issue won’t be resolved. So, the chair should stop the discussion, and maybe appoint a small group to investigate or research the issue, then bring the results back to the committee.

Tip #4. End on time. This is the most important tip. If a meeting is to end at 8:30 a.m., end the meeting. Although some attendees don’t mind going over, others will start thinking about work that needs to be done, or another meeting to go to, or an appointment to make — focus is lost. A meeting that runs on and on and on isn’t efficient and becomes much less effective as time goes on. Also, not ending on time affects meeting attendance. If an attendee knows that the meeting always goes over, he or she is less likely to attend the meeting.

Sometimes agendas are just too full, or there may have been too much discussion on one issue, etc. — that happens. But, instead of plowing on through with more and more disinterested attendees as each minute ticks by, just end the meeting, and hold those agenda items over for the next meeting. The exception is if the issue is of critical importance, but that will be few and far between.

April 6, 2017

Posted on by hortyspringer

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.