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Creating a physician performance feedback report

Medical Staff Leader Connection, July 11, 2006

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The task of creating physician feedback reports has been a challenge for years. There are no official guidelines on what type of data to include or how organizations should collect and calculate those data. And although some medical societies publish benchmarking data for certain procedures, none offers a standardized physician reporting approach.

Therefore, because there is such flexibility in creating a feedback report, ensure that the one you create meets your medical staff needs. To do so, consider the goals of a physician performance feedback report. In general, feedback reports are intended to do the following:

• Set expectations. Establishing performance measures and explaining them to physicians up front tells them what the organization expects of them. Creating perfromance feedback reports forces hospitals to articulate what they are measuring and what they consider "good" performance.
• Recognize good performance.
• Identify individual opportunities for improving physician performance.
• Allow individual physicians to self correct. The first time a physician learns about a perfromance problem shouldn't be at reappointment -- at which point it's too late to do anything about it. Regular feedback gives physicians a chance to self correct before a problem snowballs into something larger.
• Provide a basis for open and honest dialogue. Periodic feedback lends itself to ongoing communication, which in turn leads to an open and honest rapport between physicians and medical staff leadership. Periodic data also encourage physicians and leaders to ask the question, "why is this physician's perfromance different?"
• Guide reappointment. Periodic feedback reports can be used at reappointment to help evaluate current clinical competency, especially since the information is already defined, organized, and readily accessible.

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