In my last post, I discussed how often your multidisciplinary trauma performance improvement committee (PI) should meet. As you know, one other mandatory committee is required of all trauma centers, the Trauma Operations Committee (Ops). In this post, I will:

• describe how often your operations committee should meet
• help you determine whether your two committees should meet on the same day or separately

How Often?

The short answer to this question is practically the same as for your PI committee, “It depends.” Whereas the PI committee schedule is determined more by the volume of your performance improvement activity, your ops committee is driven by its agenda.

First, look at what items are on your typical agenda:

• Reports
• Announcements
• Policy discussion and revision
• Marketing and outreach planning
• TQIP report analysis
• System issue analysis
• Workgroup reports
• Other stuff

Now, think back to your previous meetings. Do you sometimes have to cancel due to a lack of agenda items? Do you struggle to keep to the time allotted and frequently go over it? These are your biggest clues that let you know that you need to adjust the meeting frequency,

In general, your ops committee frequency is reasonably predictable from your trauma center level:

• Level I – monthly
• Moderate to high volume Level II – monthly
• Lower volume Level II – bimonthly
• Level III – bimonthly to quarterly
• Level IV – quarterly

However, the agenda is really what drives meeting frequency. If you have a very active ops committee or are a “young” trauma center, this group may be very busy and need to meet more frequently than this. Base your final decision on your level of “busyness.”

To Combine Or Not Combine?

Combining your PI and Ops committee meetings has several pros and cons.

  Pros:

• Decreases the number of meetings for everybody by one
• Easier scheduling for attendees and venue
• Consolidates agenda planning for the trauma admin team

  Cons:

• May lead to loooong meetings
• Frequently results in a less predictable start time for the second meeting
• Requires extra administrative effort to maintain separate minutes and content
• Often involves required attendees changing between meetings

Consider the logistics and personalities involved in your committees carefully. Do the attendees value shorter meetings with a predictable start time? Or do they just want to power through and take care of all of the business at hand?

Bottom line: First, determine the ideal frequency for your operations committee meeting. Is it the same as your PI committee? If so, consider combining them. If not, you will probably be forced to live with separate meetings. It is possible, however, to be creative. Consider a monthly PI meeting combined with the Ops meeting every other month.

What is the usual combined duration of the two meetings? If it is more than 2 hours, I recommend not combining them. That is just too long for your attendees to stay focused. If you can combine them, then look at the specific attendees for each meeting. Are they mostly the same? If they are, you are more likely to be successful when combining them. Reach out to your attendees to see if they would welcome a single meeting date and time. But warn them that it will routinely be 1.5 to 2 hours in length.

Now, plan your agendas carefully. If you have a substantial number of attendee changes between meetings, figure out how people will know when to show up for the second. It is easiest to have the smaller meeting first, and then add attendees when the second one starts. As for timing, there are two choices: always make each meeting a fixed length, or limit your first meeting to an exact length and allow the second to start at a fixed time and have a variable duration.

Finally, make sure the contents and minutes of the two meetings are separate. This keeps your documentation clean and easier to follow.

Every trauma center is required to have two specific committees: a multidisciplinary trauma performance improvement committee (PI) and a trauma operations committee (ops).  However, a common question is, “How often do my committees need to meet?” Let’s start with your PI committee.

The answer, of course, is “it depends.” There is no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all answer. In this post, I’ll review the six factors you must consider when designing your meeting schedule.

Total Patient Volume

The number of patients seen at your center directly impacts your PI committee meeting schedule. The more patient encounters, the more likely that performance issues will arise and the more likely that some will need to be aired at the full committee meeting.

PI Issue Volume

What is the total number of PI items that your program identifies over time? Busy Level I centers may find five or ten items
every day!

In contrast, an average Level IV center may only find a PI issue to pursue every few weeks. This has a noticeable impact on how often these items need to be escalated, analyzed, and discussed at your PI meeting.

PI Issue Severity

What fraction of your PI cases actually require discussion by the full committee? How many can be processed and closed by the Trauma Program Manager alone (primary review) or with the Trauma Medical Director (secondary review)? Only complex cases that require the input of multiple liaisons actually need to go to the committee.

Alternate review pathways

There are more options for review other than the primary and secondary pathways mentioned in the previous paragraph. Typical options would be direct correspondence with a liaison for simple one-service issues or discussion (and good documentation) from a morbidity and mortality conference. The use of these alternatives will reduce the number of potential cases for your PI committee and decrease the overall number of meetings needed.

Age of your Trauma Program

Are you part of a mature, long-standing trauma center? Or is your program newly minted by the American College of Surgeons or state designating agency? Newer centers benefit from sending more items to the PI committee to build engagement of the liaisons and other attendees. More frequent meetings help get them used to the review process and the frank but friendly discussions required for effective PI review.

PI Committee “Leftovers”

How often do you need to table issues or cases until the next meeting because you ran out of time? If you are chronically short of time to discuss all the agenda items, it’s time to either make the meeting longer (groan!) or schedule them more frequently.

Bottom line: These six factors listed above must be considered when choosing your meeting schedule. Here are my starting suggestions for the ideal frequencies for adult trauma centers:

• Level I – monthly (but high volume centers may need biweekly)
• Moderate to high volume Level II – monthly
• Lower volume Level II – bimonthly
• Level III – bimonthly to quarterly
• Level IV – quarterly

Most pediatric centers admit lower volumes and less complex patients, which usually only warrants a bimonthly meeting.
Remember, these are starting meeting frequencies only.
If you are a new trauma center, consider more frequent meetings for your first year to get your attendees used to and invested in the process. And if you need more cases to fill the meeting or have more hold-overs until the next meeting, adjust your calendar appropriately.

In my next post, I’ll cover this same topic for your trauma operations committee.