Physician motivation: listening to what pay-for-performance programs and quality improvement collaboratives are telling us.

Herzer KR, Pronovost PJ. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2015;41:522-528.

Despite efforts to enhance health care safety, there is limited evidence that patients are receiving safer care. Reviewing current strategies to generate improvements like pay for performance, this commentary suggests that focusing on clinicians' intrinsic motivation can help improve quality and highlights the Keystone ICU project as a program that successfully motivated its participants. The authors recommend strategies to augment clinician motivation, including unit-level incentives.