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2001: A Medical Staff Odyssey

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, June 18, 2009

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Anne R. Buss, CPMSM, CPCS, is a medical staff consultant based in Fayetteville, AR.

Dear readers,

I remember when I laughed at the prediction that there would be a time when every home would have a computer. It seemed improbable that we would do our shopping, banking, and communicating with this personal computer. And do you remember when we in healthcare heard about doing surgery through a one inch incision? Now we have robotics, and they aren’t just in the OR. They are delivering mail and supplies throughout the facility. Don’t worry, I am not suggesting that MSPs will be replaced by technology—not yet. I am suggesting that our daily work has become highly dependent on technology. We have software and computer systems to make some of our offices paperless. We enter data, scan, fax, e-mail, verify, track, trend, and text all with the help of these new technologies.  

What is the medical staff of the future going to look like? More and more of our physicians are choosing to have office-based practices. Hospital patients are seen and managed by hospitalists. Many facilities no longer have labor & delivery units; women’s and specialty centers are the norm. The surgeons, orthopedics, and podiatrists are working out of free standing surgery centers. So where does this evolution leave the policies and processes of yester year? What do we do about the requirements for a specified number of patient contacts for renewal of medical staff privileges? What will we track and trend for quality data? What will happen to our committees and who will sit on them? Many of you forward thinkers out there likely already have ideas about how to manage these situations. Perhaps just like the necessity to attend meetings was done away with, so too will many of the committees. They will become in-house teams that deal less and less with issues of beepers, call schedules, and lost dentures and more with patient safety, medication management, and excellent outcomes. Get them in, fix them, and get them on their way. When I think of the medical staff odyssey we are on, the Jetsons come to mind!
       
Remember, those who are afraid to ask are afraid to learn.

All the best,
Anne R. Buss, CPMSM, CPCS

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