Maine Quality Counts

Leadership on the Front Lines: Training Physicians for Immediate Impact

Leadership on the Front Lines, a partnership with QC and Maine Medical Association, bolsters the ability of physicians to be forefront in emerging public health crises and advance value-based care to improve population health. The two-year physician leadership training program includes annual 8-month cohorts of up to 30 participants.  This is a new component of the MMA partnership on the Caring for ME initiative, to provide competencies for physicians in the midst of the state’s opioid crisis and rising overdose deaths. In addition to the complexity of managing substance use disorder and related social stigma, Maine’s opioid crisis involves converging issues of poverty, healthcare shortages, and insufficient services to meet patient need.  By focusing on an issue causing high levels of stress, frustration, fatigue and feelings of isolation among our physicians and practice teams, we can achieve effectiveness, build resiliency, and extend peer relationships to sustain and enrich abiltiy of Maine physicians to make an immediate impact. While the project focus will be the opioid crisis, skills learned by physicians will be directly applicable to future public health crises.

Our innovative structure of blended in-person and virtual learning modalities is designed to overcome challenges, particularly in our rural environment, that physicians face in leaving clinical practice or sacrificing personal time in order to participate.  We will focus recruitment on physicians who have a basic foundation in leadership skills, revisiting and reinforcing core leadership competencies and diving deeply into leadership on the front lines of emerging population and public health issues. The curriculum advances essential competencies for physicians when facing public health crises, and leverages tools, faculty and staff involved in our Caring for ME initiative. Our structure emphasizes peer relationship development, engagement across medical disciplines, and competencies to address social determinants of health in medical care.  It is important for younger physicians to build connections with mentors to become effective advocates, and develop resilience when tackling complex problems in public health that involve stigma and face strong public resistance.

Learning objectives:

• Understanding the public health system, key community partners, and examples of effective physician leadership in public and population health
• Resourcing complex care management, behavioral health integration and population health management
• Results-based leadership integrating public health, quality improvement, and value based care
• Enhancing communication and social marketing strategies for public health and safety, including the use of social media
• Leading and resourcing powerful teams to deliver high value care in the context of poverty and social determinants of health
• Developing resiliency and mindful leadership to address burnout and improve morale
• Cultural change strategies, specifically around the stigma of substance use disorder
• Strengthening connections with mentors who demonstrate critical leadership in the opioid crisis and can provide peer mentoring and support.