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Poll question: Does your organization have different controlled substance screening requirements for contracted practitioners versus non-contracted practitioners (i.e. traditional medical staff members)?
How does your organization compare to others? Take our poll below to find out.
Fond memories of National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week
Earlier this month, MSPs from around the country celebrated National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week. Maritza A. Hodavance, manager of medical services administration at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, NJ, recently sent us a photo of her medical staff services department along with fond memories of the week. She says the hospital recognized them by sending an informational flyer to all employees and physicians that contained information about what MSPs do for the hospital and why their role is so important.
Thanks for sharing, Maritza, and continuing the spirit of celebrating MSPs throughout the year!
Poll question: Does your medical staff and/or hospital screen for controlled substances?
How does your organization compare to others? Take our poll below to find out.
Physician with long history of misconduct finally caught by authorities
If you’re a reader of the Credentialing Resource Center Connection email newsletter, then you know about the case of a doctor with a checkered past who was finally caught by authorities. His case raises a question similar to the ones raised by the famous Kadlec and Swango cases: Does fear of disclosing too much information and risking a lawsuit cause medical staffs to disclose too little information, thus risking the safety of future patients?
Despite being fired from three hospitals, Michael Roy Sharpe, MD, was never disciplined by a state medical board. He worked in a series of hospitals in Tennessee and Alabama, until recently when accusations of having sex with a 15 year-old patient led him to voluntarily give up his medical license, according to an October 12 Tennessean.com article.
Now, he’s been officially charged with raping that patient, and five more young people have given statements about alleged misconduct, too, according to an October 23 Times-Gazette article.
National Nurse Practitioner Week highlights primary care shortage
If you haven’t already heard about it from the nurse practitioners (NP) at your organization, this week is National Nurse Practitioner (NP) Week. NPs are harnessing their spotlight to shine the light on the shortage of primary care providers in America—and how their work force can help combat that shortage.
The theme for the week is “Nurse Practitioners – 125,000 Solutions to the Primary Care Shortage.” The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) offers a resource guide on its Web site explaining why this year’s theme was chosen.
“The shortage of primary care providers is a hot topic in the healthcare reform debate. NP Week is a good opportunity to showcase the many ways that NPs are the primary care providers of choice for many patients and to let others in your community know about the value of NP-delivered primary care,” the AANP states.
Be sure to wish the NPs on your medical staff a happy National Nurse Practitioner’s Week!
The week may be winding down, but the celebrations aren’t over yet
As National Medical Staff Services Week 2009 heads into its final days, Barbara M. Barrett, CPMSM, director of medical staff services at St. Mary’s Medical Center and The Children’s Hospital in West Palm Beach, FL reminds readers to keep their celebrations going. Below is a picture they sent in.
Going the extra mile
Sometimes going the extra mile may not save the medical staff services department time, effort, or money, but it can make a huge difference in physician and employee satisfaction.
Shirley Prihoda, CPCS, medical staff coordinator at Brazosport Regional Health System in Lake Jackson, TX, realized that the hospital operators never meet the physicians that they contact. To personalize the system, she inserted a headshot into each physician’s profile. That way, the hospital operators see each physician’s face whenever they open the file to retrieve his or her phone number.
“[The operators] were originally talking to these faceless people, but they love being able to look at who they are talking to,” Prihoda explains. “That was something that didn’t take me long to do, but I got lots of calls from the operators saying how much they liked it.”
Find more great tips like this in the upcoming December issue of Medical Staff Briefing.
MSPs share their thoughts during National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week
During National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week, we are encouraging MSPs to share their thoughts with us. I did an interview with Carole LaPine, MSA, CPMSM, CPCS, manager for physician services at Trinity Health in Novi, MI. As a veteran MSP, Carole had a lot to share:
LJ: If there was one thing you could say to the world during National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week, what would it be?
CL: One of the first things I would say is, “Physician leaders, medical executives, and healthcare administrators, this is the time to recognize a vital member of the health care delivery team: your medical staff services professional.”
LJ: What does being an MSP mean to you?
Celebrate National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week!
To celebrate National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week, we asked medical staff leaders to share their thoughts on the MSPs that they work with daily.
Stewart Hamilton, MD, CMO of Yuma Regional Medical Center in Yuma, AZ says, “They are some of the most dedicated and hardworking medical professionals that I have ever known. They are the unsung and unrecognized heroes in healthcare and, in particular, patient safety.”
Happy National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week!
All week long on the blog we’ll be celebrating National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week. In Friday’s Credentialing Resource Center Connection, we asked readers to send in photos of their medical staff services department.
Cheri F. Davis, CPCS, supervisor of medical staff services at Lakeland Regional Medical in Lakeland, FL submitted the photo below. Thanks, Cheri!
Send in your National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week celebration photos by emailing them to eberry@hcpro.com and we’ll put them on the blog.