Get ready for Medical Staff Services Awareness Week!

The National Association Medical Staff Services has designated November 1-7 as Medical Staff Services Awareness Week. We here at HCPro encourage MSPs to find some creative ways to pat their peers (and themselves!) on the back for a job well done.

I’ve asked several seasoned MSPs to share their thoughts on Medical Staff Services Awareness Week and how being MSPs has shaped their lives:

“Medical Staff Services Awareness Week brings recognition to the intensely detailed and systematic level of work that is done by a credentialing office. This work ensures that the quality and competency of the practitioners treating patients is held to the highest standards. The celebration of Medical Staff Services Awareness Week raises the level of awareness to the field of credentialing and to credentialing specialists, credentialing managers, medical staff office personnel, and managers and directors of medical staff offices. With continued awareness, the profession will continue to draw to it the best and the brightest.
 
I was fortunate to work in an organization at which the public relations department viewed highly the important function the credentialing office played in patient safety and, with the help of the NAMSS annual public relations templates, the public relations department spotlighted the medical staff office and the credentialing specialists. The credentialing crew would also have our own little celebration. It didn’t need to be outrageous, just a break in time for us to connect as individuals; lunch, coffee and cookies a small gift.”

~Kathleen Tafel, former administrator of the medical and dental staff at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY.

“I’ve likened the role of the MSP to that of an air traffic controller – a key individual who makes things happen behind the scenes according to established guidelines and protocols to ensure the highest safety standards are met. In my travels as a consultant, I’ve heard many like comments applauding the profession from a variety of medical staff leaders. These comments include:

• Our medical services professional is invaluable to our success; although overworked and understaffed.
• The medical staff office is the glue that holds this medical staff together.
• The medical services professional is the reason I volunteered to be a medical staff leader.

Hopefully all of us in this profession will receive recognition and kudos during Medical Staff Services Awareness Week.  I encourage you to collect the kudos, cards of appreciation, and awards you’ve obtained, or documentation of the professional goals you’ve achieved, and keep them in a special folder named, 'Un-Medical Staff Services Week' and celebrate them from time to time (sort of like celebrating an un-birthday). We all sometimes need a boost during challenging and frustrating times to remind us as to why we are so passionate about what we do." 

~Sally Pelletier, CPMSM, CPCS president of Best Practices Consulting Group in Intervale, NH

You can read more reflections from your fellow MSPs on the Credentialing Resource Center blog. Happy Medical Staff Services Awareness Week!

Best regards,
Liz Jones
Associate Editor
HCPro