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Top Stories

• MSP tip of the week: Stay on top of legal issues

  Whether you’re responsible for coordinating the peer review committee or perform credentialing duties, at some point in your medical staff services career, you will more than likely need to know certain aspects of legal issue. At minimum, legal considerations include the following:

• Ask the expert: At academic medical centers, who appoints the department chairs?

  In some academic medical centers, the chair of the medical staff department also serves as the chair of the medical school department. This means the dean or a selection committee has primary or sole authority to appoint the department chair.

• Credentialing monthly: What is the role of the credentials committee in addressing unprofessional conduct?

  

  The first three weeks of each month, this weekly column from The Greeley Company will address current issues in peer review, bylaws and governance, and credentialing and privileging. The last week(s) it will cover other important medical staff related topics.

  If you believe everything you read, it may appear that we are in the midst of a disruptive physician behavior epidemic. As I travel to hospitals across the country, I am not convinced that the frequency or severity of unprofessional conduct (the term I prefer to use instead of “disruptive behavior”) has increased. Rather, I believe that we are changing our expectations of physician behavior.

  Read more of this column from Richard A. Sheff, MD, CMSL, chair and executive director of The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc. in Marblehead, MA.

• Physician numbers down, recruitment up

  The majority of hospital CEOs (95%) see the physician shortage worsening with the economic downturn, according to a new study.

• What are the drawbacks of launching a hospitalist program to reduce ED call burden?

  Although hospitalist programs can be  helpful in reducing on-call burden, they are not a panacea.

• ABIM announces focused practice in hospital medicine certification

  If hospitalists felt like they were trapped by a glass ceiling in the past, they can consider it broken. The American Board of Internal Medicine has announced a five-year pilot program for focused practice in hospital medicine (FPHM). The ABIM is a member board of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).

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