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? 

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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.” 

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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.

Contest entry: Practitioner quality summary form

Happy Free Form Friday!

A reader sent in this form to help streamline the peer review process.

Kathy J. Szary, medical staff services coordinator and executive assistant at Grinnell (IA) Regional Medical Center, shared her story and tool for the The Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium contest. She said,

I work in a one-person office in a rural hospital in Iowa. I was fortunate enough several years ago to be able to purchase a credentialing software program to help with the credentialing process.

My dilemma was how to get my arms around the peer review process. I had written a proposal for a quality software program to compliment my credentialing software program in 2007 for the 2008 budget, but it was not approved due to limited financial resources available.

My solution was to develop an Excel spreadsheet to track this information and print reports as needed for reappointment and CMS surveys.

After each peer review committee meeting (medicine case review committee, OB committee, and surgical case review committee, and medical staff executive committee, as needed), I collect the review forms, organize them by practitioner, and then input the information from the review form into the Excel spreadsheet database. I am then able to hide rows that I do not need to print a report for a specific practitioner that accompanies their recredentialing application, or as requested during a CMS survey. The review forms are then placed in the practitioner’s peer review file.

The key for the Excel spreadsheet includes the following:
status: MS (medical staff) or AHP (allied health professional)
type: MCR (medicine case review)
SCR (surgical case review)
OB (OB committee)
Rdm (random)
Oth (Other)

Our peer review policy states that there will be a minimum of ten charts selected at random and reviewed prior to the reappointment process, hence, the “random” classification. I use “other” classification for such things as events taken to the MSEC and then document in the “action/follow-up” column what action was taken.

Thanks for sharing! You can download the Practitioner Quality Summary Here (Excel) .

That concludes The Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium contest.

Thanks so much to all the participants, and congratulations to the winners! You can find a listing of all the forms, tools, and tips here.

Audio clip: Durable medical devices and their hidden costs

If you’re searching for information to keep your medical device review committees on top of the latest industry news, check out this audio clip from Health Leaders Media.

John Bardis, CEO of MedAssets, a healthcare supply chain and revenue cycle management company, discusses his crusade against the lack of transparency in durable medical devices. This type of financial information is important to keep in mind if your medical staff is considering purchasing new equipment or expanding clinical privileges to include new devices.

Let’s get Medical Staff Services Awareness Week off to a running start!

As I’m sure many of you are aware, Medical Staff Services Awareness Week is November 1-7. To get the celebrations off to a bang, I thought I’d ask some MSPs what this upcoming week means to them and how being an MSP has shaped their lives. Here’s what Kathleen Tafel, medical staff services consultant and former manager, medical staff services at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY had to say:
 
I came to the world of credentialing through the good fortune of an interview with two individuals: the director of medical affairs and the chief medical officer. They assessed a myriad of talents, both hard and soft (computer skills, medical terminology, meeting organization, supervisory and leadership, committee participation and leadership) and matched them to the skill-set they were looking for to fulfill the manager position for Medical Staff Services. 

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Professional group expels physician who treated octuplet’s mother

Are celebrity practitioners held to different professional standards compared to non-celebrity practitioners, such as the ones on your medical staff? One professional group recently answered that question with a resounding no.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine expelled Michael Kamrava, MD, the physician who became famous for treating Nadya Suleman, the mother of octuplets, according to an October 20 Associated Press article. The society didn’t release many details about the practitioner’s expulsion, but did say that it wasn’t due to his work with any one patient.

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What new Clinical Privilege White Papers do you need?, Poll II

Thanks to those of you who took our poll in August! We have papers underway for the two procedures that received the most votes: Diagnostic angiography and directional coronary atherectomy. Which Clinical Privilege White Papers would you like to see updated next?

And don’t forget to let us know what other new Clinical Privilege White Papers you would like by using the comment boxes below. We’re researching the suggestions left by readers in the last poll and hope to start putting together new papers soon!