MUSIC – Acknowledging Fear, Building Community, and Improving Patient Care
My presentation on MUSIC given during the Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando, Florida, May 17, 2014.
MUSIC is the Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative, a physician-led quality improvement collaborative currently focused on improving prostate cancer care in Michigan.
Transcript of Speech on MUSIC at AUA Conference 2014
Slide #2: In the beginning there was change and with change came fear. Fear is an experience we can all relate to.
Slide #3: Neuroscience tells us that fear originates in the very center of our brains – in the amygdala. It’s as if, by design, our brains are hardwired to fear any sudden change in our environment.
Photo: B-Dubs https://www.flickr.com/photos/this_is_ben/109502259/sizes/o/
Slide #4: Fear can sometimes keep both surgeons and patients out of trouble. On the other hand, fear can sometimes paralyze us – preventing us from making necessary changes in our personal and practice life.
Common fears urologists face include:
- Not being able to keep up with the new clinical information published in our field nearly every day
- Not being able to keep up with latest advances in surgery
- Loss of autonomy
- Overhead increases, reimbursement cuts, and making ends meet
- Etc., etc., etc….
Slide #5: One way to overcome fear is with data. The problem with data, in a busy practice setting, is that it is very time consuming and difficult to collect, standardize, share and interpret it.
Slide #6: Over time, I found that I simply didn’t have the time or resources to continuously collect, analyze, compare and interpret my clinical and surgical outcomes data.
Slide #7: Fortunately, as a direct result of the vision and leadership of Drs. David Miller and Jim Montie, combined with the financial support of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, I now have these resources through MUSIC.
The great thing about MUSIC is that now all of the data collection and handling happens behind the scenes. Clinical and surgical data collection no longer interrupts my clinical workflow.
Initially, most all of us who participate in the MUSIC program, I think, probably experienced at least some degree of fear and anxiety about how the data was ultimately going to be used.
It turns out, like most everything else in life, the data shows most of us are neither as good nor as bad as we might think.
Slide #8: In my own practice, we made antibiotic changes for our prostate biopsy patients based on the new MUSIC recommendations. As a result, we have seen a dramatic reduction in our post prostate biopsy infection rates.
Slide #9: Data from the MUSIC program allows us, as Michigan urologists, to put our collective heads together to improve patient care. In doing so, we will ultimately reduce cost of care. Because of MUSIC, Michigan is leading the way in prostate cancer care.
For more on MUSIC, see my guest post on the Best Doctors Blog.
