Education of Medical Staff
Crucial Support: The Medical Staff
The development and continued maintenance of a positive, productive and mutually beneficial relationship between the hospital and its physicians can be one of the most challenging issues for any healthcare administration. Every undertaking by the hospital that has an impact on patients should involve the medical staff. Because most physicians are not hospital employees and have multiple competing priorities, it can be difficult to obtain their participation. When implementing an Integrative Medicine Services Program (IMSP), the hospital needs the physicians to assess patient-specific therapies, order appropriate therapies, and manage the patient’s overall care. The physicians need the hospital to provide appropriate staffing, training about the program, and continuous updating of new CAM research findings.
For an IMSP to be successful, the physician must order or recommend the therapy to the patient. Before a physician is willing to place an order or recommendation for CAM, he must believe in the safety and efficacy of the therapy for his patient. The hospital can deliver education and information to physicians to enable them to make good decisions about CAM and integrative medicine. Indeed, healthcare systems need to proactively provide education to physicians about CAM therapies. This may not have been true a decade ago, but today with patient demands for certain types of therapies, research available that shows the benefit of some CAM therapies, and massive changes in healthcare policy that are likely to find some role for CAM and IMSPs, it is incumbent upon healthcare systems to provide relevant resources and information to the physicians on their medical staff about such topics. The approach to education (how the information is presented) and the organization’s philosophy are important components of physician training.
To obtain the best results from education and training, the use of self-efficacy based training has been found to be most effective. The CIMEx Health team developed the CAMP™ Method for training physicians through research conducted with physicians and residents at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The CAMP Method, which uses a proven process involving coaching, asking, mastering, and peer learning was found to be statistically significant in producing measurable results from the experimental group. And, training results of the experimental group were found to be significantly better than either the control group or the group trained using traditional hospital-based physician education methods. The CAMP methodology is published in the two-volume text, A Compelling Case for Clinical Documentation.
A healthcare system intent on obtaining medical staff support for an IMSP will pull members of the medical staff into the development process. In addition, the organization will need to acknowledge differences that exist among different medical and surgical specialties. Many professional organizations have developed position statements as well as publications that address CAM. In addition to the American College of Physicians, addressed earlier, the American College of Cardiology published Integrating Complementary Medicine into Cardiovascular Medicine. The paper contains a brief review of 134 cardiovascular-related integrative medicine research studies. Two neurologists, Barry S. Oken, MD and Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD have published books on CAM. Complementary Therapies in Neurology: An Evidence-based Approach was written by Dr. Oken, and Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis was written by Dr. Bowling. Other resources and position papers on CAM and integrative medicine are available from specialty associations.
The multiple continuing medical education (CME) opportunities available to physicians on CAM and integrative medicine provide further support for the importance of physician education in this area. In 2009, Harvard Medical School’s CME programs included Structural Acupuncture for Physicians, taught by Kiiko Matsumoto, a licensed acupuncturist. In addition, One Day in Mind-Body Medicine, Psychopharmacology and the Health Food Store, Meditation and Visualization Practices, and Lifestyle Medicine for Stress Management were all taught by physicians. Liability Issues in Complementary, Alternative and Integrative Medicine was taught by an attorney.
To find out how the CIMEx Team can design a program to assess organizational readiness and train your medical, clinical and administrative staff about the value of an Integrative Medicine Services Program (IMSP), click here. And visit the Contact Us page.