Journal excerpt: When it comes to physician engagement, get creative

CDI professionals need to think outside the box when it comes to physician engagement. If there’s one thing that CDI professionals are adept at, though, it’s creativity.

Everyone’s heard the oft-quoted phrase, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Well, the same is often true for physicians. “If you corner physicians and feed them, then you’ll have them,” says Janet M. Gentle, RN, BSN, MSN, CDI specialist at Northern Michigan Regional hospital in Petoskey; now retired.

In 2017, the CDI Week Planning Committee suggested that CDI specialists print stickers with documentation tips on them and place them on fun-sized candy bars to hand out to the physicians. This way, the physicians associate that tip with a kind act from the CDI team.

“Everyone needs a little pick-me-up from time to time,” says Valerie Bica, RN, CPN, CDI specialist at Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware. “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the education go down.”

Bica also tapes documentation tips to her computer, calling it her “mobile bulletin board.” While these tips aren’t directly divvied out to individual physicians, they’re visible for all to see. While she rounds (and hands out candy), she can refer to the “bulletin board” during conversations with providers.

Physicians should also be able to recognize the CDI specialists and see them as a resource, says Karen Carr, MS, RN, CCDS, CDIP, the CDI supervisor at Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina.. In order to make themselves more identifiable, Carr and her team have added a visual hint for physicians: Purple scrubs.

“We wear purple scrubs because it matched the original paper queries,” she says. Now, purple is so synonymous with the CDI team at Grand Strand Medical Center that one of the physicians calls them the “purple paper people.”

Outside of chocolate and visual cues, sometimes a simple “thank you” to the physicians goes a long way. Whether it be a hand-written note, a quick email, or a nice comment in the hallway, physicians will respond better to CDI professionals who appreciate their efforts.

“Anything to make them feel good and to make them smile,” says Laurie L. Prescott, MSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP, CDI education director at HCPro in Middleton, Massachusetts. “Physicians respond to simple recognition,” just like the rest of us.

Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from the March/April edition of the CDI Journal.