Physician Engagement Strategies in Care Coordination: Findings from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Health Care Innovation Awards Program

Abstract

Objective: To identify roles physicians assumed as part of new health care delivery models and related strategies that facilitated physician engagement across 21 Health Care Innovation Award (HCIA) programs.

Data sources: Site-level in-depth interviews, conducted from 2014 to 2015 (N = 672) with program staff, leadership, and partners (including 95 physicians) and direct observations.

Study design: NORC conducted a mixed-method evaluation, including two rounds of qualitative data collected via site visits and telephone interviews.

Data collection/extraction methods: We used qualitative thematic coding for data from 21 programs actively engaging physicians as part of HCIA interventions.

Principal findings: Establishing physician champions and ensuring an innovation-values fit between physicians and programs, including the strategies programs employed, facilitated engagement. Among engagement practices identified in this study, tailoring team working styles to meet physician preferences and conducting physician outreach and education were the most common successful approaches.

Conclusions: We describe engagement strategies derived from a diverse range of programs. Successful programs considered physicians' values and engagement as components of process and policy, rather than viewing them as exogenous factors affecting innovation adoption. These types of approaches enabled programs to accelerate acceptance of innovations within organizations.

Keywords: Physician engagement; care coordination; health care innovation.