Encouraging physician involvement in hospital-based continuous quality improvement programs.

Abstract

Results of continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs of 22 middle Tennessee hospitals were investigated. Barriers to physician involvement in CQI programs and incentives that hospitals could offer physicians to participate were also investigated. Questions were modified from the National Survey of Hospitals' Efforts to Improve Quality - 1993 (Shortell, S.M.). Two hundred physicians in the same area were surveyed. Results of the first survey indicate that hospitals in middle Tennessee are obtaining limited results from their CQI programs. Results of the second survey identified physician barriers to CQI that hospital managers can address. The majority of physicians reported that many incentives hospital quality managers say are in place to encourage physician involvement at their hospitals are not offered at the hospitals where they practice.