Creating an OPPE Task Force

The Complete Guide to OPPE: Strategies for Medical Staff Professionals, Physician Leaders, and Quality Directors provides medical staff leaders, medical staff professionals, and the quality team with the tools and strategies they need to effectively carry out OPPE. Following are some best practices for creating a successful OPPE task force.

Although the structure of every organization varies, developing an OPPE program requires cross-departmental collaboration. The best way to facilitate collaboration is to create an OPPE task force composed of members from several departments.

The purpose of the OPPE task force is to:

• Direct the selection of indicators and thresholds
• Guide the resolutions of data integrity issues and concerns around attribution
• Help design the structure and format of the OPPE reports
• Define the OPPE performance evaluation process
• Define the focused professional practice evaluation (FPPE) process
• Develop the communications plan
• Develop the organization’s OPPE policy
• Ensure that the OPPE process reflects the needs and requirements of privilege holders by involving clinical leadership in the entire process

The OPPE task force should be interdisciplinary, meaning that it must contain representatives from the relevant administrative departments at the hospital as well as the medical staff. This includes:

• Administrative physician leaders such as the chief medical officer (CMO), vice president of medical affairs (VPMA), or medical director
• Quality department, performance improvement, and medical staff services department representatives (if these departments are separate)
• Chief of staff (particularly if an administrative physician leader role does not exist at your hospital)
• Other key physician executives and medical staff leaders who need to be involved in the OPPE planning process
• Medical informatics/ information technology (IT) department representatives

It is crucial that medical informatics/IT staff be present during OPPE discussions, particularly as groups select indicators. IT staff will have insight into what data is available electronically within the organization’s existing data systems/repositories and will be able to analyze the integrity of the data (particularly capture rates for indicators under consideration). They may also be able to set up new infrastructure to capture indicators of interest and provide alternatives when data limitations exist.

Because OPPE is meant to be a practitioner-led initiative, a physician leader should chair the OPPE task force and have administrative support throughout the process. Selecting a physician leader as chair of the task force makes it clear who is responsible and accountable for the development of the OPPE program. Typically, this is the CMO or VPMA (or a medical staff leader if a physician executive role does not exist at your organization).

Once the OPPE task force members have been selected, define the roles and responsibilities of each team member. You may ask additional participants to attend the task force for topic-specific work. For example, a surgical service administrative leader may assist in developing indicators for procedural practitioners.

Tip: Soon after identifying task force members, schedule recurring task force meetings. This ensures members will have protected time that they can dedicate to building or revamping the OPPE program.

--From The Complete Guide to OPPE: Strategies for Medical Staff Professionals, Physician Leaders, and Quality Directors,” by Evalynn Buczkowski, RN, BSN, MS; Wendy R. Crimp, BSN, MBA, CPHQ; and Valerie Handunge, MA.