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The potential impact of electronic medical records on MSPs

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, September 3, 2009

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Anne Roberts, CPMSM, CPCS, is the director of medical affairs at Children's Medical Center of Dallas, where she oversees the medical administration, graduate medical education, and medical staff services departments.

Dear credentialing colleague:

With many hospitals implementing electronic medical records (EMR) systems, there have been quite a number of questions in the field regarding what it means for MSPs. How, if at all, will it impact them?

An EMR is considered the legal medical record for a patient who is being cared for in an organization that has implemented an electronic system. EMRs have been developed for many reasons, including improving health care efficiency and safety.

So how does this impact the responsibilities of an MSP? Typically, MSPs are responsible for the orientation of medical staff members. When implementing an EMR system, there is a significant amount of training that medical staff members will have to complete in order to be deemed competent to begin using the EMR system. Many organizations are tying completion of this training to the medical staff members’ privileges; failure to complete the required training could result in suspension of clinical privileges. If a physician is not able to enter orders into the system or view a patient’s medication history, then patient safety is at risk.

In addition to coordinating the physician training, MSPs responsible for the medical staff governing documents, in particular the Medical Staff Rules & Regulations, should update them as needed to include EMR or determine if revisions to the existing content are needed.

MSPs may also see improved data collection due to EMRs because the systems allow organizations to better attribute data to the right care providers and to generate reports directly from the clinical system. In turn, MSPs may use this data for focused professional practice evaluations and ongoing professional performance evaluations.

Remember, clear, effective communication is the key to success!

That's all for this week.

All the best,

Anne Roberts, CPMSM, CPCS

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