Health care organisations today strive for quality improvement in clinical care. Besides, clinical skills, the professional needs managerial skills to coordinate with medical and management staff , ensure safety of patients and employees, manage complaints, allocate resources, organise research activities, network with professionals, and educate staff and students. Meetings are usually the starting point for all these processes. The Oxford Dictionary defines meeting as ‘An assembly of people for a particular purpose, especially for formal discussion’. The importance of ­planning and conduct of meetings in the context of health care organisation is discussed and few tips are provided to make them effective.

1) Is the meeting needed?

The first step is to question if a meeting is really needed. Most meetings are poorly planned, time consuming, and are organised in short notice. It is a collaboration of heterogeneous group of thinkers or planners. Face to face meetings are becoming less popular, given the various modalities of information exchange. However, for taking major decisions and disseminating information quickly and confidentially, face to face meetings will be indispensable.

2 Type of meetings

Meetings are generally classified into 3 types—(1) Information meetings (2) Problem solving or decision making meetings (3) Education meetings .

Lectures and conferences are examples of education meetings. Most of the departmental or staff meetings in health care settings are held for making decisions. Informational meeting differs from the former in that the decision is already made prior to the meeting. Decision making meetings can be further classified as parliamentary, hierarchical, and facilitated [18].

Most of the meetings have characteristics of both hierarchical and facilitated type.

3) Planning for meetings

3.1 Main agenda:

The subject matter of the meeting is divided into various components which are described in order in the agenda . The time and person allotted to discuss each of the components is also listed in the agenda. An agenda format is represented in Table 4.3. The agenda, reading material/reminders must be sent much in advance to make the meeting productive. Consent agenda is a subset of the main agenda. It is a group of informational, self explanatory and non controversial items in the agenda, which do not require much discussion in the meeting . This is a tool to streamline meetings and direct members solely to issues that need discussion [20].

3.2) Participants

Meetings generally comprise of key decision makers, persons with analytical skills, managerial skills , persons to whom assignments will be allocated, sponsors, resource allocators, minutes recorder, and time keeper. Occasionally, a scribe would be required to express ideas on a board or flip chart. The chairperson is in charge of moderating the discussion. Not every meeting would need all these participants. Participation by no more than 15 people is usually required for effective interaction. The members are required to declare conflict of interest (COI) before the meeting in relation to any item on the agenda . Depending upon the nature of the conflict, the chair can allow the member to participate after registering the conflict, restrict his role in the meeting, or recruit another member in his position. In extreme situations, the member can be removed from the meeting/organisation and can be ordered to relinquish from the COI.

3.3) Venue and time

The venue should be easy to locate, calm, comfortable, and preferably sound proof. It should support optimised use of lighting and devices for projections, animations, videos, etc. Round table with chair arrangements is preferred if there are less than 15 members and all are required to interact. Theatre style chair arrangements is suited for a group over 20 people [21]. Name cards are required, if it is a formal meeting of important stake holders. Facilities for housekeeping and trouble shooting should be in place. Departmental staff meetings are preferably scheduled during lunch time, when hospital staff members are free of clinical commitments. Meetings on weekends, public holidays and Friday afternoons are best avoided to ensure attendance [21].

4) The ground rules for successful and productive meetings [22] and responsibilities of the chairperson are covered in Tables 4.4 and 4.5.

5.1) Handling speakers

5.2 Active listening includes non verbal responses (smiling, nodding) and verbal responses (compliments) to acknowledge the speaker’s idea. [24] This positively reinforces the speaker. Active neutrality (listening most of the time and asking few, but relevant questions) also has similar effect [25].

5.3) Confrontation

The preferred ways of confronting speakers to clarify the message include open ended questions (e.g. “Can you explain your point with an example?”), and ­paraphrasing (“Is that what you are trying to say?”

5.4) Handling antagonism

Partly agreeing with the opposing speaker without giving up one’s stand on the issue (fogging), asking another member’s view point and assertiveness while talking can control antagonism [26].

5.5) Handling mundane discussions

Coffee breaks can be a respite from mundane discussions. Visual presentations, ­videos, question answer sessions and tasteful humour can raise the spirit of ­meetings.

5.6) Body language