Changing physician behavior through involvement and collaboration

Physician champions are those who have earned the respect of their peers by delivering exceptional clinical outcomes. Physician champions leverage their knowledge and experience beyond individual doctor-patient encounters to improve healthcare for the community as a whole. Positive deviance (PD) is based on the premise that solutions to problems already exist within the community or group. It seeks to identify and optimize existing resources and strategies to solve problems, avoiding the conventional method of determining needs and then obtaining external resources to meet those needs. The PD approach rewards intentional behaviors that depart from the norms in honorable ways. As such, it makes heroes out of people who do things differently but more effectively, given existing resources and conditions. Physician champions can help healthcare executives present and discuss clinical data with physicians, minimize physician-hospital battles, and build transparency and trust. The positive deviance strategy operates according to a basic concept: Solutions to problems already exist within the group.