Running an effective peer review committee meeting

Physician leaders often perform tasks for which they have received no formal training.  Some of these responsibilities are technical, such as evaluating privileges, and others involve general leadership principles. A physician leader’s inexperience in leadership skills can have a major impact the medical staff if not performed well. One of those critical responsibilities is running a committee meeting. 

Recently, I was asked to speak at a medical staff retreat on how to run an effective committee meeting. The medical staff president specifically requested a presentation on this topic after observing that many of the organization’s committee meetings were not run well. As a good leader, he realized that most of the incoming leaders, either as department chairs or specific committee chairs, had not received any formal or informal guidance on how best use the time voluntary medical staff members spend in meetings.

My presentation focused on four key aspects to running a successful meeting:

• Prepare for the meeting
• Manage the agenda
• Manage discussion and decision-making
• Plan follow-up action

Although my presentation covered a number of techniques for using meeting time productively, one of the main points that most physician leaders don’t realize is that half of activities related to conducting a successful meeting occurs outside the meeting! Unless there is solid preparation and follow-up on actions identified in previous meetings, meetings will be unproductive.

Unfortunately, too many physician leaders walk into a meeting that they chair without any idea what is on the agenda, how long discussion items will take, or what decisions need to be made. Consider the following tips on how to prepare for a meeting:

• Hold a regularly scheduled pre-meeting with support staff
• Create a consent agenda of those items that don’t need discussion
• Create a strategic agenda with timeframes and desired outputs, listing important items first
• Prepare support materials needed for decision-making and problem solving

Effective follow-up on action items is necessary for a truly productive meeting and for committee members to consider their time well-spent. Committee members become frustrated when the issues they spend time considering and discussion do not come to fruition. In these cases, the committee chairman is not sufficiently following up on items, causing a lack of movement. Here are tips on how to provide effective follow-up:

• Clarify action items and responsibilities during and at the end of the meeting
• Have a set meeting with staff for follow-up activities
• Find out the status of follow-up items well in advance of the next meeting
• Hold members and staff accountable for persistent lack of follow-up

Remember, as a committee chair, you have been entrusted with the valuable time of your colleagues. A little extra time on your part spent in preparation and follow-up, will yield a tremendous return in savings of the total time spent by your committee.

Robert J. Marder, MD, CMSL, is vice president of The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc. in Danvers, MA.