Conducting FPPE/OPPE for your AHPs
This week, CRC Daily focuses on allied health professionals (AHP). Today’s excerpt from Credentialing and Peer Review Legal Insider describes the challenges medical staff offices face when assessing the ongoing performance of AHPs, as well as some field-tested strategies that can promote success in this endeavor.
It's been several years since the FPPE and OPPE processes were introduced, but medical staff offices still struggle with tracking the performance of their allied health professionals (AHP). Once these practitioners are credentialed and privileged, facilities find little guidance on what to do next to ensure AHPs provide quality patient care.
"State by state and even district by district vary in recording FPPE/OPPE due to the difficulties in determining what is really being requested," says Marlys Perry-Cattrysse, administrative assistant at Lakes Regional Healthcare in Spirit Lake, Iowa. She adds that guidelines are difficult to find—and even if they're found, it's difficult to maintain them. As a result, all facilities have their own way of determining what they believe to be the best information on their AHPs according to government regulations.
"There certainly is no one-size-fits-all in the world of FPPE/OPPE. Each facility works to create forms they feel best fits them. Then through networking, either through state forums or other means, information on designing a form that will work for each hospital is created," says Perry-Cattrysse.
To perform FPPE/OPPE for an AHP at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island in Providence, the medical staff office obtains a list of the AHP's clinical activity from his or her office setting and conducts a random review of 15 patient charts (pulled from a two-year period) on patients the AHP has consulted, rounded on, or performed procedures on, says Linda M. Cotta, CPMSM, manager of medical staff services.
The evaluation used at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island includes 22 factors to evaluate, which focus on patient care; clinical knowledge, learning, and improvement; interpersonal and communication skills; professionalism; and patient satisfaction.
Evaluators are asked to assess whether an AHP demonstrates a factor and note the data source used to make the determination. Examples of factors include:
- Appropriate, compassionate, and effective communication with patient/family
- Timely ordering, appraisal, and follow-up of diagnostic tests
- Responsibility, accountability, and commitment to patients, the hospital, and the healthcare team
The evaluation form used at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, Connecticut, covers many of the same areas but also asks the evaluator to assess the AHP's systems-based practice, says Donna Consiglio, CPCS, manager of credentialing and physician services. AHPs are assessed, for example, on whether they:
- Use information technology resources to support patient care decisions and patient education
- Practice cost-effective healthcare and resource allocation that does not compromise quality of care
- Apply medical information and clinical data systems to provide more effective, efficient patient care