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News: White paper considered boon for CDI programs

CDI Strategies, November 13, 2008

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A recently released white paper by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement contains some sound strategies to ensure physician participation in a variety of hospital quality programs, including clinical documentation, says Glenn Krauss, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPUR, FCS, PCS, C-CDIS, senior coding and chargemaster consultant with QHR in Brentwood, TN.

The white paper Engaging Physicians in a Shared Quality Agenda is free but requires registration. Go to www.ihi.org/ihi and register at the top of the page. Then, click the “Products” link on the left to download the white paper.

“We need to get away from thinking that clinical documentation is just about money—it’s about quality improvement,” Krauss says.

The white paper provides six structured frameworks for engaging physicians in hospital quality initiatives. These include:

1. Discover common purpose
2. Reframe values and beliefs
3. Segment the engagement plan
4. Use “engaging” improvement methods
5. Show courage
6. Adopt an engaging style

The white paper explores each of these six principles through examples. The paper also contains a physician engagement difficulty assessment (a questionnaire designed to give hospitals a sense of the barriers that may hinder partnerships with physicians), and an action plan.

“We see physicians as customers, but they’re really partners in reporting accurate core measures, risk of mortality, and medical necessity,” Krauss says. “This [white paper] describes the documentation specialists’ role in rolling out a program.”

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