Physician engagement in hospitals: a scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION: Literature on healthcare reforms highlights the importance of physician engagement, suggesting that it is a critical factor for lowering costs while improving efficiency, quality of care, patient safety, physician satisfaction and retention. As a result, many hospitals have adopted physician engagement as a top strategic priority, but little is known about the actual evidence, making it difficult for hospital leadership to identify relationships between true physician ‘work engagement’ and work outcomes. The aim of this scoping review is to identify factors associated with, and tools used to measure, physician engagement. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This scoping review will be conducted as per Arksey and O’Malley (2005). The electronic databases that will be searched from inception onwards include MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Grey literature will be searched via websites of relevant agencies such as Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Conferences and abstracts will be viewed and full paper requests made as required. Supplementary articles may be obtained by contacting field experts and searching references of relevant articles. All quantitative and qualitative study designs will be eligible that describe factors associated with, and tools used to measure, hospital physician engagement. After a small calibration exercise, screening and abstraction will be completed separately by two individuals, with discrepancies resolved by a third. Quantitative (frequencies) and qualitative analyses (generation of descriptives) will be conducted. Thematic analysis will be used to evaluate and categorise study findings. IMPLICATIONS AND DISSEMINATION: This project is part of the Ontario Hospital Association’s (OHA) initiative to improve its understanding of physician engagement. The review findings will be shared with all Ontario hospitals. Dissemination will occur through peer-reviewed publications and to the OHA membership through the OHA Learning and Engagement team.