Volume 1

Continuing Education Components

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Because continuing education should be based upon whether goals are being hit or missed, chapter 10 is the component chapter to chapter 9. The strategic approach to this issue involves key discussions between management and the physicians from the beginning. The physicians should be the key decision makers in much of this process. But, when it comes to defining how their future time will be used based upon whether they and their colleagues do what they say they are going to do regarding their documentation, they need to have the final say. This only works, however, if the physicians have been involved in crafting the measurement process and have arrived, in mutual agreement, with the hospital administration, about their responsibilities regarding clinical documentation.

For many years physicians have had the privilege of documenting illegibly, incompletely, and often inaccurately in patient records. It has been the physician’s privilege because, until recently, physicians rarely were questioned about even illegible documentation. The clinical documentation improvement program, puts a spin on this paradigm by saying for the first time (in some cases), “every word you write in the patient’s medical record is important and has an impact on the patient, our organization, and you. For everyone’s sake, please document completely and legibly.” We then need to follow this with the hospital’s commitment which is, “We will provide you with resources and guidelines to help in the documentation process. But, you are ultimately responsible for the documentation in your patient’s record.”

Continuing education helps ensure sustainability in a clinical documentation program. Furthermore, it is a topic that may motivate physicians on your own medical staff to create continuing education sessions, contributing to stronger hospital-physician relations. Any continuing education should use the CAMP Method structure to ensure you receive optimal results from the training.