Building bridges: engaging medical residents in quality improvement and medical leadership

Objective: To develop an educational intervention that targets residents' beliefs and attitudes to quality Improvement (QI) and leadership in order to demonstrate proactive behaviour. Design: Theory-driven, mixed methods study including document analysis, interviews, observations and open-ended questionnaires. Setting: Six Dutch teaching hospitals. Intervention: Using expertise from medicine, psychology, organizational and educational sciences we developed a situated learning programme named Ponder and IMProve (PIMP). The acronym PIMP reflects the original upbeat name in Dutch, Verwonder & Verbeter. It has a modern, positive meaning that relates to improving your current circumstances. In quarterly 1-h sessions residents are challenged to identify daily workplace frustrations and translate them into small-scale QI activities. Main outcome measures: Organizational awareness, beliefs and attitudes to QI and organizational responsibilities, resident behaviour, barriers and facilitators to successful learning and the programme's potential impact on the organization. Results: Overall, 19 PIMP meetings were held over a period of 3 years. Residents defined 119 PIMP goals, resolved 37 projects and are currently working on another 39 projects. Interviews show that PIMP sessions make residents more aware of the organizational aspects of their daily work. Moreover, residents feel empowered to take up the role of change agent. Facilitators for success include a positive cost-benefit trade-off, a valuable group process and a safe learning environment. Conclusion: This article demonstrates the added value of multidisciplinary theory-driven research for the design, development and evaluation of educational programmes. Residents can be encouraged to develop organizational awareness and reshape their daily frustrations in QI work.