Help in overcoming obstacles to Provider Engagement

knega1

I’m curious to know if CDI teams are physically located in clinical areas within the hospital environment or not. Our team’s small office space is located on the first floor in the “financial” area of the hospital which includes HIM & Coding. We are finding it very difficult to “go up on the floors” to engage providers on a regular basis since we have no designated space there. We tried taking laptops with us up on the floors but we were frequently asked to “give up our chair” to consulting providers. Our request to attend rounds was recently denied. So we find ourselves struggling with access to the Hospitalists and end up sending many queries that could be answered with a quick conversation. Even phone calls are difficult since the Hospitalists perceive this as an interruption to patient care and emailing got us no where for days on end.

Any ideas to help us overcome these obstacles to provider engagement would be most welcomed-thx!

spitlerj@childrensdayton.org

Our office is offsite from main campus and our team also works remote (at home) 3 days a week. We have good provider engagement. Our program is almost 2 years old at a pediatric hospital. At first we had difficulties, but with continued discussion and several presentations showing the Physicians what CDI can do to help them show the severity in which they are treating, we saw an improvement in responses. Our 3 CDS's were bedside RN's at our facility before transitioning to CDI which I believe was a huge part of our success as we already had relationships with the providers. We query 40-50% of our reviews and our response rate is right around 90% w/ an agree rate around 85%. We have tried rounding, however we find that our rounds take sometimes 3-4 hours which ends up taking us away from reviews. We try to do more focus rounding where we bring up queries from our reviews and just have small talk amongst the providers. Building the relationship is half the battle, once they trust you and know that you are there for them and the hospital, I believe you will have great success.

I hope this is helpful

J

tpeyton1

I have gone to various units when I have a specific query to discuss or just to see who's there and casually acknowledge them  and remind them that the CDI department is still reviewing things.  Sometimes the visual presence of the CDI and familiarity will ease any resistance open a path for collaboration.

morris-jeff@CooperHealth.edu

Agree with Jorde, building the relationship and being seen as a resource is half the battle. Both of my teams reside in the basement and go up on floors as needed. Prior to us being 100% electronic we “lived” on the floors doing reviews but had no dedicated space. We just had to be flexible and move if someone asked that we move. 

We do a lot of Resident education so they see us as a resource and familiar faces when they are new. 

Every facility is different but I hope you can find your “in” with the providers!

We do not regularly participate in rounding for reasons mentioned already. 

Jeff 

ebraun

Our team is also in an office or at home.  While we have laptops, it's also hard to review cases "on the floor".  We do rounding and have quick educational topics that we can literally give the main points in 2 minutes and we give them the information in paper format to reinforce what we just taught since it was so fast.  Just getting the face out there and reminding them who we are and letting them know we are here to help them not harass them is important!