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  • Title: Involving physicians in TQM. To gain physician support for quality management, hospital administrators must treat physicians as customers.
    Author: McCarthy GJ.
    Journal: Health Prog; 1993 Dec; 74(10):33-5. PubMed ID: 10130088.
    Abstract:
    The process of integrating physicians into a hospital's total quality management (TQM) program is not simple. Physicians will not view TQM as an acceptable strategy in the absence of a positive working relationship with hospital managers. Physicians must see hospital managers as colleagues who can help improve their medical practices both in efficiency and patient care. The first step in involving physicians in TQM is creating an environment that enhances physician relationships. The CEO should be actively involved with the medical staff, and senior hospital managers should work at cultivating physician relationships. Physician needs and the centrality of the physician-management relationship should enter into every management discussion. Also, managers must solicit physician feedback regularly. Managers can introduce physicians to TQM by accompanying them to off-site TQM programs for a few days. Managers should also coordinate a continuing education program at the hospital, inviting a physician to address medical staff about TQM. Physicians are more likely to respond positively to one of their peers than they would to a consultant or business manager. Managers should then invite hospital-based physicians to participate on TQM interdisciplinary teams to resolve a problem chosen by the senior medical staff. The problem should be one that promises to be a quick fix, thereby ensuring demonstrable success of TQM and allaying any doubts. After an initial demonstration of TQM's success, the cycle is repeated. A year or two later, managers should invite off-site clinicians to join interdisciplinary teams on issues important to them.
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