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AHA seeks edits to revisions of MS.1.20

Medical Staff Leader Connection, October 25, 2006

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The American Hospital Association (AHA), in a letter to the accrediting body on Oct. 23, expressed support for the revisions to standard MS.1.20, but requested edits to element of performance (EP) 27, and urged the JCAHO to allow hospitals two to three years to be in compliance. 

Hospitals and medical staffs have commented that previous proposed revisions to the standard were overly prescriptive and burdensome.

The proposed EP 27, which would require hospitals to have a provision to allow the medical staff to propose medical staff bylaws and amendments to the hospital's governing body, as currently worded "suggests that the governing body's approval of medical staff bylaws and amendments that originate with the organized medical staff is inevitable or nothing more than a formality," according to the AHA's letter.

The AHA suggested wording that "conveys a necessarily more precise meaning that EP 27 is to be implemented consistent with the ultimate decision-making authority of a hospital's governing body."

Citing hospital reports that it takes a minimum of two years to adopt bylaws amendments, the AHA recommended that the JCAHO permit hospitals to amend their medical staff bylaws during the hospital's next regular updating cycle, and establish an "outer time limit" of three years from the adoption of MS.1.20 to come into compliance.

The National Association Medical Staff Services (NAMSS) is urging the JCAHO to discontinue its revisions to Standard MS.1.20, or to clarify in the introduction to the standards that adoption of the proposed revisions to MS.1.20 is voluntary.

The JCAHO will close a third field review of MS.1.20 on October 27.   

To read the letter from the AHA, click here.

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