Medical Staff

Find data to assess the competency of APPs

Medical Staff Briefing, July 1, 2009

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Although The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) developed its focused and ongoing professional practice evaluation requirements in 2007, many hospitals still struggle to comply. They have all the data they need to assess licensed independent practitioners’ competence—it’s a matter of putting it to appropriate use.
A more daunting challenge is measuring the competence of advanced practice professionals (APP), such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants (PA).
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of hospitals doing
this well,” says Mark Smith, MD, MBA, CMSL, director of credentialing and privileging services at The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc., in Marblehead, MA.
One of the largest hurdles is that the activities of APPs aren’t always documented. For example, hospitals may only require PAs to record that they were present during a surgery, but not require them to record that they performed a suture.

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Staff Briefing.

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