Recent Articles
Contest entry: Joint affiliation language
Managing four medical staffs—and thus four sets of bylaws and four chiefs of staff—is overwhelming for any MSP. “We realized early on in the process of acquiring hospitals that we needed to have a mechanism for sharing certain information in order to avoid duplication of efforts, time, as well as money,” says Barbara Grondona, CPMSM, director of medical staff administration at Sharpe Metropolitan Medical Campus Hospitals in San Diego.
Her organization developed joint affiliation language to open the door for sharing information related to credentialing, peer review, corrective action, and hearing and appeals processes. Adopting this language has resulted in a substantial savings both of time and money, Grondona says.
Credentialing Resource Center Symposium Speaker Application
Calling all medical staff professionals and medical staff leaders: Have you mastered your organization’s OPPE process? Do you have a solid medical staff leader orientation process to ensure new members have the tools they need to tackle the challenges they will face? If so, we want to hear from you!
Each year our Greeley consultants share expert credentialing and privileging advice during the Credentialing Resource Center Symposium. In 2010, we want to share the stage with talented voices from the field. Below are the four tracks we’ll cover at next year’s symposium at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV, May 6-7.
If you’re interested in presenting, please copy the fill information at the bottom of the page into an email, fill it out, and email it to Associate Editor Emily Berry at eberry@hcpro.com by October 12, 2009.
- Privileging Challenges and Solutions: Presentations in this track will provide attendees with the tools to master privileging trends for low-volume providers, advanced practice professionals, telemedicine providers, and create a common template from which to draft each practitioner’s privileges.
- Practitioner Competency Data: Presentations in this track will help participants create manageable and complete FPPE and OPPE documents using data collected from various departments, build working relationships with other departments to avoid duplicate work, and compile competency data to provide accurate practitioner assessments.
- Credentialing and the Law: Presentations in this track will explore legal do’s and don’t’s using case precedent as well as state and federal laws as a guide. Attendees will learn how to draft policies to avoid lawsuits and what evidence to present to win them.
- Medical Staff Services Department: Presentations in this track will aid the management of the medical staff services department (MSSD)—the ultimate hub of a practitioner’s universe. Session attendees will learn how to keep the MSSD running smoothly through budgeting, managing MSPs, organizing meetings, drafting bylaws, purchasing credentialing software and transitioning to a paperless office, acing an accreditation survey, and more.
Name:
Title:
Credentials:
Organization:
Phone number:
E-mail address:
Please summarize your background/qualifications in medical staff services or the organized medical staff:
Please list any previous speaking or presentation experience:
Please list the topic(s) you are interested in presenting and give a brief description of what you would cover:
Contest entry: Color your privileging documents
Don’t lose your important documents!
Rowena A. Hodge, medical staff coordinator at Lakeland Regional Hospital in Springfield, MO, has been credentialing individuals for more than 20 years.
Rowena says,
“Regardless of the size of your medical staff, the resulting paperwork is tremendous. My tip [comes from once] accidentally discarding an original privilege sheet signed by the physician.
Now all our applications inquiry letters, etc. , are run on colored paper. If it’s yellow, it stays in the file!”
Keep those contest entries coming, and you could win the free registration to The Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium (Nov. 8-9, Naples, Fl)!
We’ll share the entries on the blog and select the best one at the end of the month.
To enter the drawing, submit your best practice, tool, or tip to us. Find more contest details here!
Poll question: Does your medical staff use pre-applications?
In the November issue of Briefings on Credentialing we examine the current use of pre-applications. An excerpt of the article is available after the poll; the entire article is available online in mid-October.
We want to know how your organization manages the application process. Take our poll and see how your medical staff’s use of pre-applications compares to others.
Confusing peer review laws hinder NPDB reporting, AMA article says
Previous research has suggested that medical staffs don’t report practitioners to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) as often as they should. But why? One factor might be confusing peer review laws, according to an AMNews article.
The NPDB requires medical staffs to report practitioners if it restricted or revoked the practitioner’s privileges for more than 30 days based on competency problems or professional misconduct.
However, hospitals choose to deal with competency problems and professional misconduct in different ways, and if they don’t involve privilege suspension, they may not be reported to the NPDB.
Contest entry: Redesign your credentialing process
Here’s another best practice about steamlining the credentialing process.
Lana Heavilin, RN, medical staff office coordinator at Holland Hospital in Michigan, says that her medical staff office and quality director dedicated themselves to redesigning the credentialing process through a two-day retreat (in March of this year). Before the retreat, the office had six new applicants waiting to be processed. Since that time, the office hasn’t had any.
Lana says,
Contest entry: Cut down on med staff meetings
Go to too many meetings? Wouldn’t it be great if we could cut down on the number of meetings required? Hear how one institution made that hope a reality.
Georgiaetta “Poncho” Klebba, CPMSM, medical staff services manager at Capital Region Medical Center (CRMC) in Jefferson City, MO, submitted a best practice on cutting down the number of med staff meetings. The result–medical staff satisfaction and a “tremendous cost savings” for the hospital, she says.
“CRMC reduced the numbers of medical staff department meetings and general staff meetings from four times per year to two times.
Department meetings are held at a local hotel at 5:30 p.m. in April and October with the general staff meeting to follow at 6:30 p.m. The general staff meeting includes dinner and a CME lecture, as well as updates on all new bylaws, rules, regulations, and/or policies that have had chances since the last meeting and reports from the administrative council members on hospital issues. [more]
Robotic surgeries need more uniform regulations, researchers say
Robotic surgeries, specifically those done with the da Vinci Surgical System are growing in popularity and may be outpacing uniform professional regulations. An article in the September issue of the Journal of Urology takes aim at the lack of uniformity among hospitals which credential and privilege practitioners to use this equipment, according to a Reuters review of the research.
“Currently, there is no credentialing system to evaluate a surgeon’s competency and surgeons cannot practice on simulators before taking on live patients,” summarizes Reuters.
Kevin Zorn, MD, chief of urology at Weiss Memorial Hospital at the University of Chicago and lead author of the journal article, told Reuters that hospitals have different guidelines for privileging da Vinci Surgical System users, and some have none.
Note: HCPro’s Clinical Privileging White Paper on robotic-assisted surgery will be published along with the November issue of Briefings on Credentialing. It will be archived on www.CredentialingResourceCenter.com beginning in mid-October. The white papers provide a guide to hospitals developing their own credentialing and privileging criteria.
Contest entry: Credentialing application flowsheet
Here’s another great tool from one contest submission.
Kim Everett, medical staff coordinator at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, Indiana, uses a great, comprehensive application flowsheet while credentialing physicians and allied health personnel during the application process.
Kim says,
“It has been a valuable instrument as the credentialing staff process and verify information contained in the application. It also provides coworkers with immediate information regarding the status of the application, as we can quickly see references that remain outstanding, any board certification or licensure issues, along with unresolved issues or potential ‘red flags.’
The application flowsheet is also used as a quick reference when presenting the application to the Credentials and Audit and MEC committees, as they consider the applicant for membership and privileges.“
You can download the credentialing application flowsheet here.
Keep those contest entries coming, and you could win the free registration to The Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium (Nov. 8-9, Naples, Fl)!
We’ll share the entries on the blog and select the best one at the end of the month.
To enter the drawing, submit your best practice, tool, or tip to us. Find more details here!
Credentialing Resource Center Symposium Speaker Application
Calling all medical staff professionals and medical staff leaders: Have you mastered your organization’s OPPE process? Do you have a solid medical staff leader orientation process to ensure new members have the tools they need to tackle the challenges they will face? If so, we want to hear from you!
Each year our Greeley consultants share expert credentialing and privileging advice during the Credentialing Resource Center Symposium. In 2010, we want to share the stage with talented voices from the field. Attached are the four tracks we’ll cover at next year’s symposium at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV, May 6-7.
If you’re interested in presenting, please click here to fill out the form and email it to Associate Editor Emily Berry at eberry@hcpro.com by October 12, 2009.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you!