The best of hospital leadership take an active interest and role in safety and quality at their facility, an attitude that can help quality improvement departments, accreditation coordinators, and others who live and breathe process improvement institute the changes necessary to...
During what some physicians may consider the "good old days," taking ED call was a way for physicians to generate revenue and drive business toward their private practices. However, changes to the way payers reimburse physicians and a rising number of under- and uninsured...
Hospitalists are an integral, indispensable part of hospitals' around-the-clock operations. They are increasingly responsible for in-hospital patient care and necessary for managing publicly reportable clinical and service-related outcomes. At the same time, hospitalists can be...
You've identified sources of data, analyzed trends, formatted the results into easy-to-read ongoing professional practice evaluation (OPPE) scorecards, and disseminated those scorecards to practitioners. Now what?
The term "accountable care organization" (ACO) has been nebulous since it first became part of the healthcare vocabulary in 2009 with the introduction of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Since then, the industry has been waiting for the Centers for Medicare...
In the past, physicians could apply to any hospital, and the chances of becoming a medical staff member and obtaining clinical privileges were pretty high. As long as a physician passed muster in terms of clinical competence, medical staffs left their doors wide open.
The Joint Commission issued its Standards BoosterPak™ for Focused Professional Practice Evaluation/Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (FPPE/OPPE) in January. The accrediting agency didn't change any of the standards or elements of performance related to MS....
As more physicians seek employment and contracting opportunities, hospitals are forced to navigate what can feel like uncharted waters. Some hospitals are still reeling from the mistakes they made in the '90s when they gobbled up physician practices only to cough them back up...
Who needs grand rounds? Physicians can just get the information they need from the Internet, right? Not so fast. Grand rounds play an important role in building collegiality, encouraging physicians to learn about subjects outside of their immediate purview, and creating a...
