Emotional Intelligence: Leadership Essentials for Chest Medicine Professionals

Coaching doctors to improve ethical decision-making in adult hospitalized patients potentially receiving excessive treatment. The CODE stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to assess whether coaching doctors to enhance ethical decision-making in teams improves (1) goal-oriented care operationalized via written do-not-intubate and do-not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNI-DNACPR) orders in adult patients potentially receiving excessive treatment (PET) during their first hospital stay and (2) the quality of the ethical climate.

METHODS

We carried out a stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial in the medical intensive care unit (ICU) and 9 referring internal medicine departments of Ghent University Hospital between February 2022 and February 2023. Doctors and nurses in charge of hospitalized patients filled out the ethical decision-making climate questionnaire (ethical decision-making climate questionnaire, EDMCQ) before and after the study, and anonymously identified PET via an electronic alert during the entire study period. All departments were randomly assigned to a 4-month coaching. At least one month of coaching was compared to less than one month coaching and usual care. The first primary endpoint was the incidence of written DNI-DNACPR decisions. The second primary endpoint was the EDMCQ before and after the study period. Because clinicians identified less PET than required to detect a difference in written DNI-DNACPR decisions, a post-hoc analysis on the overall population was performed. To reduce type I errors, we further restricted the analysis to one of our predefined secondary endpoints (mortality up to 1 year).

RESULTS

Of the 442 and 423 clinicians working before and after the study period, respectively 270 (61%) and 261 (61.7%) filled out the EDMCQ. Fifty of the 93 (53.7%) doctors participated in the coaching for a mean (standard deviation [SD]) of 4.36 (2.55) sessions. Of the 7254 patients, 125 (1.7%) were identified as PET, with 16 missing outcome data. Twenty-six of the PET and 624 of the overall population already had a written DNI-DNACPR decision at study entry, resulting in 83 and 6614 patients who were included in the main and post hoc analysis, respectively. The estimated incidence of written DNI-DNACPR decisions in the intervention vs. control arm was, respectively, 29.7% vs. 19.6% (odds ratio 4.24, 95% confidence interval 4.21-4.27; P < 0.001) in PET and 3.4% vs. 1.9% (1.65, 1.12-2.43; P = 0.011) in the overall study population. The estimated mortality at one year was respectively 85% vs. 83.7% (hazard ratio 2.76, 1.26-6.04; P = 0.011) and 14.5% vs. 15.1% (0.89, 0.72-1.09; P = 0.251). The mean difference in EDMCQ before and after the study period was 0.02 points (- 0.18 to 0.23; P = 0.815).

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that coaching doctors regarding ethical decision-making in teams safely improves goal-oriented care operationalized via written DNI-DNACPR decisions in hospitalized patients, however without concomitantly improving the quality of the ethical climate.

Patient Safety/Quality Improvement Primer, Part IV: Psychological Safety-Drivers to Outcomes and Well-being

Psychological safety is the concept that an individual feels comfortable asking questions, voicing ideas or concerns, and taking risks without undue fear of humiliation or criticism. In health care, psychological safety is associated with improved patient safety outcomes, increased clinician engagement, and greater creativity. A culture of psychological safety is imperative for physician well-being and satisfaction, which in turn directly affect delivery of care. For health care professionals, psychological safety creates an environment conducive to trust and openness, enabling the team to focus on high-quality care. In contrast, unprofessional behavior reduces psychological safety and threatens the culture of the organization. This patient safety/quality improvement primer considers the barriers and facilitators to psychological safety in health care; outlines principles for creating a psychologically safe environment; and presents strategies for managing conflict, microaggressions, and lapses in professionalism. Individuals and organizations share the responsibility of promoting psychological safety through proactive policies, conflict management, interventions for microaggressions, and cultivation of emotional intelligence.

Supporting newly qualified nurses to develop their leadership skills

Leadership is not expected solely of managers. At any stage of their career, nurses are expected to be able to demonstrate leadership in their day-to-day role. However, newly qualified nurses, who often experience a challenging transition from nursing student to registered nurse, may lack the confidence to demonstrate leadership. Nurse managers can support junior nurses to develop their leadership skills, notably through training, mentoring, reflection and action learning. By guiding newly qualified nurses in the use of different leadership approaches, experienced nurses can contribute to enhancing the quality of patient care. This article discusses how nurse managers can support newly qualified nurses to develop their leadership skills.

Variations in Demonstrated Emotional Intelligence: Trainee to Experienced Faculty Member

OBJECTIVES

To identify differences in emotional intelligence (EI)-related competencies between fellows and faculty in a cohort of pediatric critical care physicians.

DESIGN

Single-center, cross-sectional observation study.

SETTING

Seventy-two-bed multidisciplinary pediatric critical care unit at a quaternary children's hospital (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA).

SUBJECTS

Forty-seven critical care physicians, including 19 fellows and 28 faculty members, were assessed. A multidisciplinary team of 83 physicians, nurses, and nurse practitioners contributed to the assessments.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

A multirater EI assessment tool (Emotional and Social Competency Inventory 360) was used to measure EI competencies of participating physicians across 12 core competencies. Utilizing a priori scoring definitions, physician EI competencies were classified as strengths or areas for growth. Results were stratified based on provider experience, generating comparisons between fellow and faculty cohorts. Ninety-four percent (177/188) of distributed assessments were completed. Fellow strengths were identified as organization awareness, achievement orientation, and teamwork; areas for growth were influence and emotional self-awareness. Compared with fellows, faculty members demonstrated additional strengths in the domains of adaptability, emotional self-control, coach and mentor, positive outlook, inspirational leadership, and influence.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the first characterization of EI competencies among trainees and faculty members using a validated multirater assessment tool. The descriptions of physician EI, based on years of experience, are an important piece of the foundation for future explorations into the advancement of physician EI and effective leadership.

Creating an Organizational Culture for the Chest Physician: Creating an Organizational Culture for the Chest Physician

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE MATTERS

Culture is a key driver of organizational performance and underpins strategy. As previously discussed, if the strategy is the plants and the garden plan for a garden, the culture is the soil. Without a healthy culture, nothing will grow, irrespective of how well planned the garden or how beautiful the individual flowers. Using the case of establishing the culture in an institute at the Cleveland Clinic, the article examines an approach to establishing and maintaining an organizational culture. Anchors for this process are a situational assessment of the current culture as a new leader steps in and mindfulness by the leader of how members of the institute should experience the organization. Critical success factors include open communication and establishing psychological safety as well as modeling integrity. Fundamentally, when cultures are grounded in the seven classical virtues-trust, compassion, courage, justice, wisdom, temperance, and hope-they are best positioned to unleash the discretionary effort of its members. When people expend discretionary effort, they do the right thing when nobody is watching and the performance drivers are internal motivation and alignment with mission rather than external drivers to seek reward (carrots) or to avoid punishment (sticks).

Building Teams in Health Care

Because teams can accomplish goals that individuals cannot, teams matter. Indeed, teams especially matter in settings such as health care, where favorable outcomes depend critically on the contributions of many different people with diverse skills. As important as effective teambuilding is for health care, how to build teams is often not included in medical curricula, and physicians learn to build teams through "hidden curricula." In the context that we can do better, this "How I Do It" presents an approach to building a team in a common scenario for the chest physician: picking up the inpatient Pulmonary Consult Service. The approach is informed by considering the attributes of an effective team, knowledge of common team dysfunctions, and best practices for building a team. The importance of teambuilding is underscored by substantial evidence that effective teamwork produces superior clinical outcomes.

Change: Leadership Essentials for Chest Medicine Professionals

Change is a fact of life; the absence of change creates stagnation. This is perhaps especially true in health care, where progress in treating disease depends on innovation and progress. At the same time, change is often uncomfortable. Thus, it is helpful to model the change process to optimize the chances of successfully effecting change. Furthermore, how to lead change is a critical leadership competency. Three models for leading change are reviewed: the first-the eight stages of change-which was not designed for health care; the second called "switch"; and the third called Amicus, which was uniquely designed for health care. The models share many common features, with the explicit reminder in the third model that physicians should be involved in the change effort early. Although sparse, the evidence does suggest the applicability of these models to health care. Beyond having a roadmap for leading change, it is helpful to assess the worthiness of undertaking a change effort and of predicting the phasic response to change efforts, given that humans are often change-averse. In this regard, both the "payoff matrix" and the change curve, derived from the work of Kübler-Ross on grieving, are offered as tools. Finally, physicians' avidity for change is framed by two opposing vectors. On the one hand, physicians share in the general human aversion to change. On the other hand, physicians are data-reverent and also wish to do their best for patients, which encourages their embrace of ever-increasing evidence and change.

Leadership Essentials for CHEST Medicine Professionals: Models, Attributes, and Styles

In the context that leadership matters and that leadership competencies differ from those needed to practice medicine or conduct research, developing leadership competencies for physicians is important. Indeed, effective leadership is needed ubiquitously in health care, both at the executive level and at the bedside (eg, leading clinical teams and problem-solving on the ward). Various leadership models have been proposed, most converging on common attributes, like envisioning a new and better future state, inspiring others around this shared vision, empowering others to effect the vision, modeling the expected behaviors, and engaging others by appealing to shared values. Attention to creating an organizational culture that is informed by the seven classic virtues (trust, compassion, courage, justice, wisdom, temperance, and hope) can also unleash discretionary effort in the organization to achieve high performance. Health care-specific leadership competencies include: technical expertise, not only in one’s clinical/scientific arena to garner colleagues’ respect but also regarding operations; strategic thinking; finance; human resources; and information technology. Also, knowledge of the regulatory and legislative environments of health care is critical, as is being a problem-solver and lifelong learner. Perhaps most important to leadership in health care, as in all sectors, is having emotional intelligence. A spectrum of leadership styles has been described, and effective leaders are facile in deploying each style in a situationally appropriate way. Overall, leadership competencies can be developed, and leadership development programs are signature features of leading health-care organizations.