Develop robust privileging criteria

Given the growing diversity in hospital specialties, competency assessment should tap many sources, rather than relying too heavily on any single channel. And prospective criteria sources are abundant, according to David J. Siegler, MD, a pediatric physician with Child Neurology of Tulsa, an independent solo practice. He points to a number of activities physicians do to stay current. “That includes teaching, self-reading, mentoring other physicians, being mentored by other physicians, attending work-shops, and seeing patients every day.”

To distill such activities into competency indicators, consider what makes MOC so attractive from a privileging stand-point, says Patricia A. Rogers, a healthcare attorney in the Oklahoma City office of McAfee & Taft, an Oklahoma-based law firm. Namely, she points to its easy translation into an objective measure—the physician either did or did not maintain a credential from an American Board of Medical Specialties affiliate.

With this characteristic in mind, Rogers suggests identifying clear-cut measures that verify a physician’s commitment to continuing education and competency, such as logs of continuing medical education credit and performance data from the physician’s primary hospital or practice location. Other telling measures include infection rates, complications, malpractice history, and procedure volume, says Siegler.