In Term 1, the MGPO Quality Incentive (QI) Program asked more than 2,000 eligible physicians to review their patient experience data and work on a department-specific patient experience improvement plan. Each physician also needed to watch 5 Epic microlearning videos and complete their department-chosen measure. 88% of physicians successfully completed all the measures.
Patient Experience. Sharing patient experience information is part of our commitment to improving the patient experience of care and enhancing quality and safety. Groups implemented an improvement plan created in the previous term. 97% of physicians met this target. Examples of the types of plans implemented include better addressing patients’ concerns during visits and aligning patient and physician expectations for team-based care. Surgery worked on improving communication with patients through sharing best practices, which are easily applicable to many departments:
- Engaged faculty to agree upon 10 actionable tactics.
- Using a menu to pick a tactic worked best for the wide variety of practices within the department.
- Asked faculty to provide feedback about barriers to implementation.
The tactics they implemented helped improve patient and family communication. With the conclusion of the QI Program, sending physicians their patient experience scores has transitioned to an Mass General-wide program. Clinical staff with patient experience data will continue to receive an email with a link to their scores, and chiefs will continue to receive reports with aggregated scores and comments by department.
Epic Microlearnings. Each physician needed to watch 5 Epic microlearning videos, each less than 7 minutes. The microlearning topics were carefully considered and vetted by the Frigoletto Committee and physicians who work closely with Epic to ensure they were relevant and useful. 94% of physicians met the target and most found them useful:
- “I just finished 5 of the learnings and the others I have completed already. The learnings are really well done and helpful. Some of them I watched twice.”
- “These were actually helpful. Short and useful. I followed along with my Epic open and practiced!”
Take the microlearnings on your own or recommend them to colleagues; all clinicians can now access them (without the incentive).
Department measures. 96% of physicians met their department measures which were focused on continuity of care, population health management, patient safety, peer review, and other topics.
Term 2 Measures
Physicians received a personalized email in mid-July with their measures for Term 2. The measurement period runs through September 30.
- Ambulatory Access. Each physician will participate in an interactive video and respond to one follow-up question in HealthStream about the benefits of direct scheduling.
- 2019 MGPO Physician Survey. Please note, that physicians received a request to complete the survey measure between May 30 and July 3, which is outside of the usual Term 2 timeframe. Physicians received email reminders to ensure completion by the deadline, and the survey is now closed. To ensure proper analysis and review, it cannot be reopened. Because of the survey’s length and repetitive questions to test multiple survey instruments, the MGPO made survey completion a full measure and not a prerequisite for Term 2, as it has been in the past.
- Meet a department-chosen metric.
Sarah Phair, (617) 724-4322, QI Program.