Dr. Kira McClellan discussed the development of a leadership toolkit for physicians, which was created to address the current lack of support, resources, and training for physicians in leadership roles.

The leadership toolkit, which is part of the Physician Waffle House platform that was created via Dr. McClellan’s Navig8 project, was developed by a subcommittee consisting of physicians in various roles such as the LMAC chair, MSA executive, Chief of Staff, as well as their MSA administrator.

This committee was responsible for moving forward the project and engaging with colleagues to make sure the resource was relevant, applicable, and responded to their needs. 

The subcommittee recognized there were current leadership courses offered by Interior Health through the Navig8 program; however, given that it accepted 25 physicians per 2-year cohort and there are approximately 100 physician leaders in Interior Health at any given time, there was still a gap for physician leadership support and training. 

The Physician Leadership toolkit includes 10 sub-sections on topics such as:

• How to run a successful meeting
• Department Head 101
• How to have a difficult conversation or approach disciplinary action
• Leadership 101 – knowing yourself and your team
• Provincial framework and funding,
• Diving deeper – other resources, Health, wellness, and balance, Workplace health and safety, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Cultural Sensitivity.
• Resources include videos, TED Talks, articles, and more, all vetted and approved by at least two members of the committee. 

Success Factors & Lessons Learned:

• Ample support offered through the MSA Administrator was key to coordinating meetings, organizing content, compiling and incorporating feedback, etc., that moved this project forward.

• Helpful to have both health authority and non-health authority medical leaders involved in the committee, and in hindsight, including physicians not in leadership roles would have offered a different yet valuable perspective. 

• Funding from Facility Engagement to cover physician sessionals, as well as collaborating with the health authority to access Health System Redesign funding for further engagement.

• Meeting with health authority partners to ensure the toolkit avoided duplicating existing leadership resources and training but rather complimented it in a format that was publicly available. 

• CME accreditation was considered as a future effort, but it was difficult and expensive to do through the current website vendor; however, it can fall under self-directed learning.  

Demonstrating Impact:

• The toolkit has been the most accessed resource on the Physician Waffle House website with almost 1000 user interactions to date, and continuous testing and improvements are underway based on physician feedback.

“At any given time, I calculated that I think we have about 100 physician leaders just in Interior Health alone on any given day, and that sort of spans between department heads, senior medical directors, executive medical directors, MSA executives, and so on.  

So, if we're training 25 people every 2 years through one program, there's definitely a huge gap for other leaders to receive training and support through other means, which is why the toolkit is so important.”

– Dr. Kira McClellan, Vernon Jubilee Hospital

Resources

Presentation recording

Presentation slides

Toolkit accessible via the Physician Waffle House website under the Learn tab.

Dr. Denise McLeod discussed the UHNBC Co-leadership Learning Series, a unique collaboration between Northern Health, Prince George Medical Staff Association, the Special Services Committee (SSC) –including Physician Quality Improvement (PQI) and Facility Engagement (FE) – the Rural Coordinating Center of British Columbia (RCCbc), and Prince George Community Continuing Medical Education (CME).

The program aimed to provide robust leadership education over two years, involving 20 participants, of whom 15 were physicians and 13 were operational leaders within the health authority.

It included both online and in-person sessions, with internal and external facilitators and presenters. 
 
The pilot was created in response to surveys that identified the need for consistent orientation and leadership training from both medical and non-medical members of the hospital.

As a result, an advisory committee consisting of representatives from each of the partners was formed to design and implement the program based on their own needs and findings, as well as exploring what was available through other health authorities and Doctors of BC. 
 
Success Factors & Lessons Learned:

•    A very strong partnership between both medical and administrative leaders based on existing relationships and allowing people to take on roles aligned with their strengths enabled success.

•    Partners that were also funding sources helped to financially support the program, while advising that one person should be responsible for managing the various budgets to simplify the process.

•    An important part of the engagement process was an approach to evaluation that helped participants to co-design future sessions through their feedback and input, including communicating back to them what was heard and how it was incorpo-rated.

•    Be flexible; things and people change - be prepared to adapt your approach and plans.

•    Establish a clear goal from the beginning; keep this at the forefront each time you work together.

•    Ensure role clarity for everyone on the advisory committee as well as program participants – make action items clear, book meetings and sessions well in advance, communicate regularly and consistently.

•    In-person time for leadership training is highly valued and helps to grow relation-ships.

“Its success was due to the committed and passionate members of the advisory committee that had been involved in all aspects of the designing and delivering the program - from conception to budget to nomination and selection processes, agenda development, evaluation, reviews, and more.

We still had to develop those relationships. We never worked on anything like this, which was complex. And with all these different partners and different skills that everybody had trying to find out and let people shine where they could shine and grow where they wanted to grow.” – Dr. Denise McLeod, UHNBC MSA

Demonstrating Impact:

• The program was well-received with 75% of participants reporting that they had applied the skills learned in their workplace.

•  92% agreed that the learning series was a good use of their time and fit their needs for leadership education.

• 100% preferred in-person learning.

•  92% felt that having all participants from one community/facility was valuable. 

“Understanding leadership styles helps you work more effectively with others. It is im-portant to understand healthcare systems, the Northern Health Authority organizational structure, governance, and funding to be an effective leader within the organization.

It is essential to be equipped with tools and learning to have a strong functional relationship with those you lead.” – Co-Leadership Pilot Participant 

Resources:

Presentation recording

Presentation slides

Dr. Julia Stewart presented on a project aimed at encouraging women physicians to step into leadership positions at the Burnaby Hospital (BH).

The project, led by Dr. Stewart and initiated by Dr. Donna Sue, has been running for three years in response to a growing recognition of the system barriers to women engaging in leadership positions such as balancing professional and home roles, workplace culture, and economic disparities. 
 
The project involved:

• 6 meetings a year with invitations to all female medical staff members,
• a messaging group to share information and connect, skill-building opportunities, and
• surveys to document those taking on new leadership roles and their accomplishments.

The meetings were diverse and based on feedback from the participants themselves, with sessions on topics such as:

• developing and practicing elevator pitches
• communicating with confidence,
• financial missteps for women
• reflections on a medical leadership journey and tenants for success, and more.

The project aimed to create a safe and inclusive space for women to share their experiences and learn from each other.
 

“The major thing that came up over and over again was creating a safe and inclusive space, and women really talked about how this was an opportunity to share their experiences, and sometimes have some very deep and profound moments of saying “is that really what you've heard in your department or in your field."

Or somebody else might say,“you know you are legally allowed to job share, you are allowed to work part time”, so learning together, and also challenging each other to grow professionally as leaders was a huge benefit of this work.” – Dr Julia Stewart

Success Factors & Lessons Learned

• Grassroots approach: success was driven by medical women who identified the need and led the solution, ensuring relevance and credibility.

• Offering leadership supports in a range of formats such as presentations, podcasts, online learning, etc. to increase accessibility, including opportunities to connect in-person, hybrid, or strictly online.

• Summarizing key points from each session and circulating to the group helped create cohesion and sharing learnings even for those who couldn’t attend.

• Cross-disciplinary involvement and networking across departments enriched discussions and broadened perspectives.

•  MSA sessional funding for attendees and project leads emphasized the value of this leadership development work, and MSA administrator support was essential to the project’s success.

Demonstrating Impact: 

• 93 women participants over 6 sessions.
• 90% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that the event was a good use of their time.
• 93% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that the event allowed them to engage with colleagues.
• 98% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that they would participate in upcoming events.
• 75% of respondents felt more inspired to take on a leadership role at Burnaby Hospital after attending the meeting.

Resources:

Presentation recording

Presentation slides