Ask the expert: What information should we provide on our medical staff website?
Before creating a website, Lynette Fisher, CPMSM, CPCS, medical staff coordinator at St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings, Mont., recommends examining existing systems in the medical staff services department (MSSD) and seeing what would save the most time and money if completed electronically. The MSSD should also figure out what type of information it wants to include on the website, and what function the site should provide to the medical staff.
“My director and I sat down and listed everything we wanted to put on there, how we wanted it to look, how we wanted to access it, what exactly was going to be listed under what, and from there that’s how I made the build,” Fisher says.
In addition to contact information for the MSSD, the St. Vincent website contains an abundance of useful information for the medical staff, including:
- Attestation documents
- Helpful links for physicians
- Learning modules
- Medical staff governance documents and newsletters
- Policies and procedures
The majority of the information contained on the website is available to the public, with the exception of pages such as the ED call schedule that contain providers’ contact information. Fisher is currently working on a section of the site that will display recently approved policies so that the MSSD can easily educate physicians on changes within the organization, which fulfills Joint Commission requirements.
This week’s question and answer are from Medical Staff Briefings.