All Entries Tagged With: "Greeley"
The aging physician: Balancing safety, respect, and dignity
Physicians often enter their 60s practicing medicine full time, but as they inch their way toward 70, many start making significant adjustments to their schedules and scope of practice. Most of us acknowledge the affect aging has on our cognitive and motor skills, with the help of some not-so-subtle hints from our colleagues and loved ones. For some, it’s no big deal—there are so many ways to earn a livelihood inside and outside the healthcare profession that it seems fruitless to hold onto things that may no longer fit our professional goals, such as inpatient privileges. They gladly move into the ambulatory setting and are often relieved to enter a different phase of their professional lives. For others, however, this transition is not easy, and it may require the guidance and support of peers. For this reason, it is important for medical staff leaders to understand how to support and respect long serving colleagues while ensuring that patients are not inadvertently placed in jeopardy.
When I entered the practice of emergency medicine 30 years ago, there were always one or two physicians in their 80s who refused to give up their practices. More than once, I followed a physician suffering from dementia on his or her on rounds to discretely modify orders at the request and relief of the nursing staff. Some of the orders required minimal modification and some were lethal doses of inappropriate agents that the nursing staff had no intent of carrying out. This was our tradition—to support our loyal colleagues who had served their communities for decades, despite that we all knew this was not the right thing to do.
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:
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.
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!
Greeley Medical Staff Institute contest entry
As we gear up for the Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium, we’re soliciting our readers for their tips, best practices, and expert advice for a chance to win two free seats to the event in Naples, FL November 8-9. The entries have been so creative and insightful that we couldn’t keep them to ourselves!
Here’s a great tip for medical staff servies professionals submitted by Kathleen Tafel, administrator of the medical and dental staff at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY.
Kathleen writes:
“Having the same person attend and support the executive officers, executive committee, credentials committee, and bylaws committee meetings helps to bring continuity to the tasks of the team members of a medical staff office. This individual becomes the office historian and is able to convey information to the team that will help them in processing an application, creating a call schedule, or bringing forward revisions to privilege forms. Many times, the medical staff office is not kept in the loop. This individual provides that connection to events, processes, policies or actions that may affect or have impact on how they process a file or interact with the applicant.”
With regard to reappointment, Kathleen also suggests creating a reappointment schedule that coordinates with all the committees at which credentials files are to be reviewed. Allow adequate time to process the applications, ensure the primary source verifications are fresh, and obtain recommendations from chairs, chiefs, and committees. “Staying on time and within the framework of that developed schedule will make for confident presentations at credentials committee and a quick turn-around to the board,” she says.
Thanks Kathleen! Keep the great ideas coming!
Contest winner: Physician reappointment tools
Thank you to all the readers for their great work and entries submitted for the August giveaway for two free seats at the Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium (November 8-9, Naples, Fl).
July’s giveaway went to Nancy Bertling, RN, MBA, quality manager of TOPS Surgical Specialty Hospital in Houston, TX for submitting a physician report card for quality and re-credentialing.
This time, August’s giveaway goes to Lana Heavilin, RN, a medical staff office coordinator in the quality department of Holland Hospital, in MI. Lana submitted tools for physician reappointment. She writes:
“We were finding when a physician came up for reappointment, and he had procedures with number [of] requirements to maintain to privilege, he/she might be surprised to find they didn’t meet the numbers, and has not time to rectify the problem.
So, every six months I run a report out of our software program (Midas) and give each provider a report of the privileges they have requested, the number needed to maintain the privilege and the actual number they have done. This way there are no surprises at reappointment time!”
You can download the following tools:
- Volume requirements worksheet (Word doc.)
- Letter for volume report (Word doc.)
- Sample report for cardiology (PDF)
Congrats to Lana!
For all other readers, you can still submit your entry of your best practice, tip, or tool to improve medical staff office tasks, improves return on investment, or raises the quality of care. Keep those entries coming! Find more details here.
Contest winner: Physician report card tool
Source: TOPS Surgical Specialty Hospital, Houston, TX.
Congratulations to Nancy Bertling, RN, MBA, quality manager of TOPS Surgical Specialty Hospital in Houston, TX! Nancy is the July winner for the Greeley Medical Staff Institute Symposium giveaway for two free seats at the Nov. 8-9 seminar in Naples, Fl.
Nancy submitted a report card for quality and re-credentialing that keeps track of physician activity. This tool is also used in dashboards for quality and peer review.
You can download the physician report card here. Thanks for sharing, Nancy!
To all the readers, you can still submit your entry for next month’s contest. Find details here. Keep those entries coming, and good luck!
Summer book sale
A well stocked bookshelf is an editor’s best friend. Here’s a shot of mine below.
If you’re looking to restock yours with the latest books about credentialing, privileging, competency, reappointment evaluations, and other important medical staff issues, check out the sale we’re having at www.HCMarketplace.com.
Our sale doesn’t just apply to medical staff books, we’ve got the other departments in hospitals covered, too, so pass this savings message on to a friend.
Join HCPro for Physician-Hospital Alignment: Practical Tools and Models in Today’s Economy
Join HCPro on Tuesday, June 16, for Physician-Hospital Alignment: Practical Tools and Models in Today’s Economy. During this 90-minute audio conference, Bill Leaver, president and CEO of Iowa Health System, will discuss his organization’s approach to adopting various medical staff models to cultivate successful physician-hospital relationships and improve the bottom line. In addition, Robert “Buster” Mobley, MD, ACPE, executive vice president of medical affairs and quality at St. Dominic Jackson Memorial Hospital in Jackson, MS, shares a physician-economic alignment tool, which helps the organization determine how best to structure relationships with individual physicians. You’ll also hear from William K. Cors, MD, MMM, CMSL, vice president of medical staff services at The Greeley Company, about the need for flexiblity and communication when creating physician-hospital alignment.
I am particularly excited about this program because it will give our listeners real-life examples of how hospitals are adopting various types of physician relationships to adapt to an ever-changing economic healthcare landscape. If you have any questions you would like to ask our speakers, feel free to e-mail me at ejones@hcpro.com. I’d love to hear from you.
We know that budgets are tight, so we’ve dropped the price of this educational program to $199. I hope you can join us.
CRC Symposium: Photo slideshow
Our 12th annual Credentialing Resource Center Symposium may be finished, but the lessons learned will help you improve your medical staff services department throughout the year. Here are some of the photo highlights from this year’s show.
The weather is always beautiful in Las Vegas, and the fountains outside Caesars Palace make the view even more spectacular.
Moving inside, the colorful hotel registration desk helped welcome attendees to the conference.
Did you have a chance to stop by our bookstore? We were giving away complimentary copies of our newsletters and had special discounts for all of our books. (Yes, that’s me smiling next to Briefings on Credentialing.)
If you’ve attended a Core Privilege Plus demonstration, chances are you’ve heard Bryan Robbins, a specialist at CACTUS Software speaking. Attendees could meet the man behind the voice by stopping by the CACTUS booth in the exhibit hall.
Many of you also had a chance to say hello to our many speakers between sessions. (From left to right: Mark Smith, MD, MBA, CMSL; Sally Pelletier, CPMSM, CPCS; Emily Berry; and Carol Cairns, CPMSM, CPCS.)
We hope you enjoyed this year’s show. We look forward to seeing you at next year’s conference, May 6-7, 2010 at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas!
