“A fair and robust comanagement structure is an optimal delivery model,” says Christopher Massari, MD, hospitalist at PHMG/PeaceHealth Hospital in Springfield, Ore. “But because most hospitalist services are staffed 24/7, there’s a tendency for specialists and nurses to take advantage of hospitalists because they are ‘available.’ ”
Dr. Massari says he has experienced the “dumping” phenomenon firsthand. “It happens frequently. In the past few years, I have gradually developed the confidence and experience not to let it happen to me,” he says, “but I may inherit patients admitted by my hospitalist colleagues who may not feel as empowered or as skilled at avoiding it.”
Whatever your personal feelings about the comanagement relationship, pro or con, comanagement is going to be part of most hospital medicine groups’ repertoire of services.—Hugo Quinny Cheng, MD, director, comanagement with neurosurgery service, University of California at San Francisco Medical Center
Hospitalist dissatisfaction with comanagement is a problem with imperfect solutions, Dr. Cheng explains. “From my view, the biggest risk of comanagement is the inequality in relationships. Not every hospitalist has the temperament to do comanagement. If there is a perception that the partnership is unequal—favoring the surgeon—and if you feel like the junior partner in the relationship, it can be disheartening,” he says. “If the patient is not that sick, or if you feel you don’t have much to add professionally, it might feel like doing grunt work.”
Dr. Cheng also points to a theoretical increase in medical legal risk that the individual hospitalist faces. “With comanagement, you are taking responsibility not just for recommending care but for ensuring that the care is appropriately carried out, monitoring responses to treatment and dealing with delays,” he says. “When I talk to hospitalists, this fear of medical legal exposure comes up regularly.”
Rules of Engagement
SHM’s white paper offers a checklist of important issues to address when developing a comanagement service agreement. Issues include identifying champions from both sides of the collaboration, as well as from the hospital’s administration—which is an essential third party.
“Rules of engagement,” which should be spelled out in a written service agreement, include clarifying a shared vision, mutual goals and expectations, and the identified value proposition for both sides from the arrangement. Appropriate patients should be defined, along with what happens at night and on weekends, lines of authority and communication channels, and how conflicts will be addressed.
For Dr. McKean, the process really starts with “reflecting on your own core values.” Have a clear sense of the group’s goals, current staffing levels and pressures, and ability to add staff for a growing caseload, she says. “That’s where the rubber meets the road,” she adds. “You may want to hire people with a special interest in comanagement, and don’t try to have everyone in the group do everything.”
Jeanne Huddleston, MD, FACP, FHM, clinical scholar at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and past president of SHM, recommends dipping into the hospital’s database to get a better sense of the patient population targeted by a planned comanagement agreement—numbers, demographics, severity of illness, level of symptoms, length of stay, costs, and the like. Hospitalists also need to clearly understand the goals and needs of their comanagement partners—surgeons and other specialists—and of hospital administrators, who are an essential third party to the arrangement (see “What Hospitalists’ Comanagement Partners Are Saying,” above).
For Dr. Auerbach, the fundamental question is: “What are we specifically being asked to fix, and are we the right resource to fix the problem? Are we qualified to do it? Are we staffed to do it? Are we being given appropriate resources and authority to do it? And fundamentally, how are we going to know if we’ve made an improvement?” Quality metrics for comanagement—which should be gathered from the outset to provide a baseline—include in-hospital morbidity and mortality rates, 30-day mortality, hospital readmissions, length of hospital stay, costs of care, and overall return on investment for the hospital, as well as improved patient and professional satisfaction.