Improving Care for British Columbians: The Critical Role of Physician Engagement

Abstract Canadian provinces are addressing quality of care and patient safety in a systemic way, but obtaining physician involvement in system improvement continues to be a challenge. To address this issue, individual physicians, physician groups, the British Columbia Medical Association, the health authorities, the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council (BCPSQC) and the Ministry of Health have come together to support physician involvement and foster physician satisfaction. Building on earlier work on patient safety, in 2010 the ministry developed a comprehensive strategy for system-wide improvement, focusing on achieving critical population, patient and sustainability outcomes. Central to this plan is the acknowledged need to involve healthcare providers of all disciplines, in particular physicians. Today, BC physicians are leading large-scale provincial clinical improvement in three interdependent areas: Clinical Care Management, Integrated Primary and Community Care, and the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. To further physicians’ key contributions to BC’s healthcare system, the BCPSQC, physician–ministry committees, health authorities and the Ministry will continue to engage physicians through practice support, feedback, financial recognition and information exchange, and by supporting improvements in the care provided to patients. Organizations that are highly successful in achieving local and system-wide improvement in patient care and health service delivery have achieved their successes in large part because clinicians (most notably physicians) played an integral part in shaping clinical services (Mountford and Web 2009; Snell et al. 2011). Canadian provinces are addressing quality of care and patient safety in a systemic way, but obtaining physician involvement in system improvement, whether at the level of their clinical practice, healthcare facility or health authority, continues to be a challenge. To address this issue, individual physicians, physician groups, the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA), the health authorities, the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council (BCPSQC) and the Ministry of Health have come together to support physician involvement and foster physician satisfaction. Efforts to date have been based on a renewed provincial focus on individual and population health. To achieve improvements in care, physician leaders are needed in health system design as well as delivery, and impediments to their participation must be resolved. Neither strategy is sufficient in itself; individual and population health are interdependent, and both must be addressed to achieve the quality of care that British Columbians deserve. improving care for British columbians: the critical role of physician engagement