Embracing performance data

For many medical staffs, getting physicians to accept and use performance data has been a struggle. Although the availability and use of physician data seems like a technical issue based on information systems and data accuracy and reliability, fundamentally, it is a cultural issue. Unless a medical staff creates a culture of data acceptance, all of the IT advances will be for naught.

Typically, the source of OPPE data in many organizations is through the hospital performance improvement (PI) department because this group is often managing and analyzing the hospital's quality data so it has the expertise and IT interface capabilities for physician performance data. However, hospital PI data is about systems and processes. Peer review data is very personal and is likely to elicit a more negative response. The culture issue here is whether the PI department understands this criterial difference.

This will more likely occur if the PI department has a customer service culture which seeks to understand the medical staff needs and culture. If the PI culture is more supplier driven (e.g. "Here's the data we can get, you do with it want you want."), or is frustrated that the medical staff doesn't use the data it produces, the medical staff will need to be proactive in engaging in a dialog with the PI department and its senior leaders. Part of this dialog is for medical staff leaders to take ownership of working with physicians to accept data as a starting point for discussion.

Source: Medical Staff Briefing