When a hospital experiences an adverse event or a near miss, it is the duty of everyone involved in the incident to find out exactly what happened and why. The first step in getting to the bottom of any incident is to conduct a root cause analysis (RCA). Generally, the quality...
For more than a century, the primary responsibilities of credentialing and peer review have been delegated to the medical staff. To fulfill this responsibility, medical staffs organized themselves under the principles of democratic self-governance. Early on, this meant direct democracy. The...
The story of Margaret McBride, a nun who was recently excommunicated for allowing an abortion to occur at Arizona-based St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, has made headlines during the past few months. The case prompted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to write...
Although in many hospitals, complaints or concerns regarding physicians go to the quality committee and then the peer review committee (if need be), in some hospitals, the CMO screens all peer review cases. If this is the case at your facility, the medical executive committee (MEC) should review...
A recent New Mexico case suggests that hospitals don't necessarily have to enforce credentialing requirements in employment and service contracts to the letter to ensure that they are not vulnerable in malpractice suits.
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...
