Tips for engaging medical staff members

• Consider reinstituting mandatory medical staff meeting attendance. Under such an arrangement, active medical staff members could be required to attend a minimum number of department and general medical staff meetings per year (e.g. 50% to retain the rights of self governance, namely to vote, hold office, and constitute a quorum.
• Pay physicians for their participation in medical staff activities. Given Gen Xers’ and Gen Yer’s attitudes toward work, these physicians will likely respond to financial incentives far more so than appeals to volunteerism and citizenship. 
• Ask physician executives and medical directors to research and find various solutions for medical staff issues and bring well-developed recommendations to the medical staff for decision making.
• Take advantage of physician’s growing knowledge of information technology by communicating through e-mails, chat rooms, and virtual meetings. 
• Seek out formal and informal one-on-one time with opinion leaders to listen to their input and perhaps gain their support regarding important issues.
• Constantly remind physicians that they need to govern themselves or else someone else will govern them. However, recognize that a growing cadre of younger physicians doesn’t mind being told how to practice medicine, as long as they can product their personal time and earn a good living at the same time. 
• Invest in medical staff leadership development and succession planning. Well-educated medical staff leaders become engaged, skillful, and effective leaders and are the single best tool to engage physicians in medical staff matters.
   

These tips are from The Greeley Guide to New Medical Staff Models, Solutions for Changing Physician-Hospital Relations by Richard A. Sheff, MD, CMSL and William K. Cors, MD, MMM, FACPE, CMSL.