(bright upbeat music)
- Hello, everyone and welcome to The Wrap,
brought to you by Michigan
Medicine Headlines.
I'm Dan Ellman with the
Department of Communication.
Today we're going to check back in
on the progress of policy
reform at Michigan Medicine.
You may recall that in early
March just before COVID-19 hit,
we hosted a discussion
introducing PolicyStat.
Today we'll learn even more
about the reform process
and why it's so important
at Michigan Medicine.
But first, be sure you go back
to check out all previous
episodes of The Wrap,
including the original one on PolicyStat.
You can find them on iTunes,
Stitcher, Google Play,
or any other podcast hosting platform.
And ever since the pandemic hit,
episodes have been uploaded
to YouTube as well.
Shows debut each week, can always be found
as part of the headlines we can review.
With that out of the way,
let's bring back a veteran of
The Wrap, Peg Hill-Callahan.
The clinical policy manager
for Michigan Medicine.
Peg, thank you so much for being here.
- Thanks for having me.
- The organization has been
reforming how it governs,
collects and manages its policies.
Peg, can you quickly
recap why the organization
is undergoing this reform
and how it's doing so?
- Sure.
That effort began several years ago
in response to our employees frustrations
regarding access to our policies,
procedures and guidelines,
which is a mouthful,
so I'm just gonna call those P, P and G's
for the rest of this.
In addition to that,
there was also confusion
regarding what we had overly
complex approval pathways,
which delayed implementation
of our P, P and G's.
Some policies that seemed
really simple on the surface
and actually were, took years to approve.
So, two work groups did a really deep dive
into Michigan Medicine's
policy governance landscape,
and they discovered that problems exist
in basically kind of two buckets,
the governance framework
and access to policies.
And out of their work, came
two major recommendations
that really targeted those two issues.
The first one, their first recommendation
was formation of the
Interprofessional Policy Committee,
or IPPC.
And their job is to oversee the formation
of that new policy governance framework.
And that's gonna be used
for development, approval
and review of all of our
clinical P, P and G's.
The second recommendation was
to you're more familiar with I think,
was the adoption of PolicyStat,
as the health systems repository
for all our P, P and G's.
PolicyStat is a web-based
policy management application
and is designed really as a one-stop shop,
to provide the workforce with
the information that they need
when they need it.
We're currently in the process
of moving all departmental
P, P and G's into PolicyStat,
and then the IPPC can work
on sorting through them
and making sure they're
consistent and easy to understand
and make sense.
- And I'm glad you
mentioned that committee,
we're gonna get to that in a little bit,
but real quick, one thing that
I find really interesting,
is that policy reform
actually plays a major role
in the organization's move
toward high reliability.
And I know a lot of people
have heard a lot about HRO,
and the journey to higher reliability.
Can you explain that connection
and how it pertains to both
employee and patient safety?
- Absolutely.
There's a very real connection
between policy governance and safety.
An analysis of the root causes
of our patient safety events,
showed that more than 40% of these events
had their routes and issues
related to P, P and G's.
For example, either someone
didn't know a policy existed,
or knew it existed but
didn't know where to find it.
By the way, prior to PolicyStat,
there were more than 60 different
websites hosting policies,
and they didn't interconnect at all.
Somebody might have
found too many policies,
or what they did find
was confusing or unclear.
So know why and comply is
one of the core principles
of our journey to high reliability.
And the policy governance overhaul
including the adoption of PolicyStat
really lays that
foundation and groundwork.
In our current state,
particularly post-COVID-19,
if we're really post-COVID,
we're facing a lot of
challenges in our workforce
and in our institution,
requiring us to do, all of us
really to do more with less,
but we have to do it just as reliably.
And medicine is so complex
and practice has changed so quickly.
So using P, P and G's to
guide our care for patients
and their families,
helps us provide what we wanna provide
exemplary first rate consistent care.
So by having robust transparent
and efficient development
and approval pathways,
as well as that one centralized location
for all the policies,
it gives us the opportunity to enhance
and strengthen our safety culture,
remembering that our employees, all of us
are the first line of
defense against mishaps,
mistakes and errors
that can harm patients.
- Yeah.
Now, as part of the reform,
I know you already mentioned the IPPC,
which is the Interprofessional
Policy Committee,
who sits on that committee
and what is it tasked to do?
- The IPPC is composed
of a multidisciplinary
group of leaders who are
experts in clinical care,
clinical operations, legal, regulatory,
patient experience, safety,
medical informatics,
so it's a very multidisciplinary
group of voices
from across our health system.
The group began meeting in
July, we had our first meeting,
and meets twice a month.
And our first meeting was
delayed a bit, (giggles)
because of who sits on it
and the fact that their
leader are clinical leaders.
So it was delayed for a few
months due to the pandemic.
But I'm so impressed with this group.
They're so committed and engaged.
And they're making real progress
even in the short period
of time toward our goals.
The committee was charged
by executive leadership
to develop a new policy
governance framework
to guide the development, approval
and ongoing management of
our clinical P, P and G's.
But building this framework
is a really kind of big task,
and it's their first task.
And it has like a bunch of sub tasks,
it is you can imagine.
For example, agreeing on nomenclature,
'cause we have to really be
speaking the same language
in order to do the work.
So we can't just call everything a policy
'cause everything isn't a policy.
So we're working on nomenclature.
Revamping our approval pathways,
so we have an approval
roadmap that's robust,
efficient, and transparent.
So we don't get caught in
those tailspins of approval
that take years to get something
from concept to bedside.
They need to adjudicate the
universe of our P, P and G's
once they all get into PolicyStat.
When we're done moving everything in,
then, I'd like to compare it
to a tangled ball of yarn,
everything from those 60
websites is pouring in.
So we're gonna have duplicates,
we're gonna have conflicting,
we're gonna have confusing.
So the IPPC's job is
going to be to untangle
that massive tangle of yarn,
and smooth it out so we have
something that's accessible,
understandable and easy
to use and consistent.
Once the IPPC has completed the framework
and that's a pretty big
job as I've just described,
then they'll move into their steady role,
which is reviewing and
approving all P, P and G's
that are multidisciplinary
and have an impact
across the health system.
And also in a really important
role that they'll fill
is a consultative partner
for their colleagues
across the health system,
who are struggling with issues
about policy development
or management.
So they've got their
work cut out for them.
And I'm just so impressed at how engaged
and willing they are
to put that effort in.
- Yeah, and it just sounds
like such an enormous task,
'cause you mentioned sort of
the 60 different websites,
but obviously multiple policies
on each of those websites,
to bring them all together,
it just seems like it could
be overwhelming, right?
And you sort of have to
break it down task by task.
- That's exactly what we're doing.
I have a whole work plan for
how we're going to prioritize,
we were gonna group policies together,
probably by clinical areas,
and then decide which are the
riskiest groups for safety,
or regulatory,
and then get some subject
matter experts together
to make recommendations to the IPPC,
'cause that's a terrible use of their time
to just throw 6000 policies
that are unclassified at them
and go have at it, untangle this.
So we really need a plan
where their expertise
is used appropriately,
and we give them the information they need
to adjudicate it in an efficient way,
that uses their time
and in an efficient way
but still gets the job done.
- Yeah, so I was gonna ask
and maybe this can help
make the job easier,
but how can employees who
don't sit on the committee,
help move this reform process forward?
- Oh, there's so much people can do.
IPPC members are going
to depend on regular
and ad hoc communication
with their constituencies.
So please be responsive to
their requests for information.
And don't hesitate to seek them out
with your ideas and concerns,
'cause it is bi-directional,
they wanna speak to you and hear from you.
If you're in a leadership role,
please get your P, P
and G's into PolicyStat.
We did a campaign, "Give
us your PolicyStat."
And the IPPC can't begin their work
on adjudicating all of those policies,
until what should be in
there is all in there.
For example, I don't
want them to adjudicate,
say, 18 chess two policies,
and do all that work and smooth it out,
and then six months later,
have four more trickle in
that we didn't know about.
That's just a waste of everybody's time.
- Yep.
- Another thing people can do
is use PolicyStat in your day-to-day work
in caring for patients and families.
And if you discover a problem
with the P, P and G in your work,
please let us know.
The email to let us know is
michiganmedicinePolicyStat,
all together @med.umich.eddu.
And we really depend on you
as sort of a crowdsourcing,
to help us find problems and fix them.
So don't keep it a secret, share it,
'cause chances are if you've noticed it,
other people have noticed it too.
- Yeah, it's really up to
everyone to make this work
and move forward successfully.
So what are some other things
employees should be looking forward to
in terms of policy reform in the months
and even years ahead?
- So look for regular updates on,
we'll have a website for the IPPC,
and we'll update that regularly,
so you'll know the work
that's going on with them.
Expect that our P, P and
G's will be accessible,
understandable and consistent
with robust, transparent and
efficient approval pathways.
So that's our ultimate goal,
those two issues will get
smoothed out eventually.
Through our HRO training
expect that our workforce
will indeed know why and
comply and utilize P, P and G's
to inform their daily work
and expect that PolicyStat
will be your one-stop shop
for accessing our P, P and G's.
And lastly, please be patient.
It took us a long time to
get where we are right now.
And it's gonna take us a while
to get ourselves out of it.
But the work of IPPC, is moving along,
everyone's engaged and committed,
leadership is absolutely
on board with this.
And so we're making this happen,
but the mess took a while to happen,
and the cleanup will take a while as well.
- Yeah, well, thank you so much Peg
for sharing this information
and for the incredibly important work
you and your team is doing.
If you wanna learn more
about policy reform at Michigan Medicine,
go to mmheadlines.org,
that's mmheadlines.org.
And while you're there,
check out some of the featured
stories from this week.
For instance, on Monday,
readers learned the value of diverse teams
within the organization.
There's a breakdown of
cancer awareness month
that take place in September,
and with the help of expert colleagues,
the newsletter busted some
of the biggest mass myths
related to COVID-19.
Find all that and more at mmheadlines.org.
All right, it's time for
the weekly trivia contest.
We asked listeners last week,
the first free flu vaccination
clinic for employees
will be held on which date?
The answer, September 3rd.
Congratulations to Kerry Gavin,
who sent in the correct answer.
Kara, a member of the
Department of Communication
will be in touch shortly to
help you claim your prize.
Now, for this week's question,
what is the name of the
Rogel Cancer Center program
that involves non-clinical
members of the healthcare team
who specialize in guiding
patients through a complex system?
Once again, what is the name
of the Rogel Cancer Center program
that involves non clinical
members of the healthcare team
who specialize in guiding patients
through the complex system?
You can find the answer
in this week's Cancer
Awareness Month story,
and once it send it to
headlines@med.umich.edu
for the chance to win a prize.
It's all the time we have for this week.
Before we go, I'd like to pass
along a huge congratulations
to our audio assistant Hunter Mitchell,
who is getting married this weekend.
Congrats Hunter, and Peg, thank
you so much for being here.
And thank you to all of
our listeners and viewers,
for everything you do for patients,
families and each other.
We'll see you next week.
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