MSPE FAQs

The Medical Staff Practice Enhancement (MSPE) program is a provincial collaboration to establish a structured program of feedback and supports for health authority medical staff members to pursue ongoing quality improvement and career development.

In time, the goal of MSPE is to provide medical staff with facilitated feedback using evidence-informed practice reviews, so that they may create professional development plans and link in to coaching or mentoring resources. Eventually, each active medical staff member - that is, physicians, nurse practitioners, midwives and dentists - in the health authority system will participate in a reflection process over a six-year cycle. Practitioners will have a designated "primary" health authority/organization to avoid duplication and track participation.

The provincial collaboration is led by BC health authorities, with facilitation and support from the BC Medical Quality Initiative (BC MQI).

Subject matter experts will be convened in practice enhancement panels to develop specialty-specific content, provide feedback on the potential impacts for the specialty and make recommendations for implementation.

To support alignment and reduce duplication, regular consultation is also underway with the medical staff regulatory colleges, professional associations and other medical quality or medical education stakeholders.

Establishing a provincial practice enhancement program for BC will be a multi-year journey. The approach is phased and iterative, to build up toward a full in-depth review and enhancement process. Task groups and committees have been working since fall 2019 to develop an initial phase of the program with volunteer early user groups.

Tools and resources for facilitated conversations using multisource feedback will be available for use by volunteer early user groups beginning in winter 2021.

BC health authorities and affiliate boards are responsible to ensure that professionalism and appropriate standards of medical care are observed and provided in services to patients. However, there is currently no structured, consistent approach to medical staff evaluation or performance improvement in the health authorities.

By working together on a provincial practice enhancement program, we can learn from one another. A collaborative approach ensures that medical staff can rely on consistent processes and supports to participate in the quality improvement journey. It also enables health authorities and affiliates to effectively share best practices, tools and training. As a result, patients and clients can be assured that all medical staff members are embedded in a culture of continuous learning and practice improvement.

BC MQI and the health authorities are consulting with the regulatory colleges to avoid duplication of existing quality programs. MSPE committees are also in conversation with the Doctors of BC and the BC Patient Safety and Quality Council to ensure differentiation of MSPE from the emergent Measurement System for Physician Quality Improvement (MSPQI).

The purpose of MSPE is to facilitate reflection on individual learning goals and plan; to be achieved through one-to-one feedback conversations, to be conducted in a safe environment, protected under the Evidence Act, Section 51.

Questions or comments about MSPE are welcome and may be sent to mspe@bcmqi.ca.

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