Make OPPE part of the credentialing cycle

In The OPPE Toolbox: Field-tested Documents for Credentialing, Competency, and Compliance, medical staff leaders and MSPs share the forms and policies they use to conduct OPPE at their institutions. They also share the ups and downs they went through trying to implement OPPE. One of the biggest challenges, as you will see in the excerpt below, is getting your medical staff to view OPPE as another step in the credentialing process, not as a punitive measure set to put physicians on the chopping block.

Beebe Healthcare offers an array of inpatient, outpatient, emergency, and diagnostic services. Founded in 1916 by two physician brothers, Drs. James Beebe and Richard C. Beebe, the medical center in Lewes, Delaware is a 210-licensed-bed, not-for-profit seaside community hospital. Beebe’s specialized service lines include cardiovascular, oncology, women’s health, and orthopedics. Beebe’s emergency department in Lewes is a Level III Trauma Center. There are 275 physicians and 88 allied health professionals that are privileged and go through the OPPE process.

The organization has been doing OPPE for about four years, and according to Jeffrey E. Hawtof, MD, FAAFP, vice president of medical operations and informatics for Beebe, it took a solid two years to get the necessary buy-in from the medical staff. Beebe had physicians that wanted to take over quality review, so Hawtof used that to make OPPE happen. “First and foremost, you have to generate buy-in,” says Hawtof. “Make sure your medical staff leaders and medical staff are innately involved in all steps of the process and have them take ownership of it.”

Another thing that helped Beebe was to generate a sense of urgency. Hawtof says an outside issue that came about forced Beebe to develop a sense of urgency regarding physician performance and quality care. “I used that [issue] as a lynchpin to make [OPPE] come about.”

Every six months, Beebe reviews its OPPE indicators. Its policy calls for a review every 6–9 months, so indicators are reviewed 3–4 times in any reappointment cycle. To keep OPPE from becoming punitive, all forms use “needs improvement” as the lowest ranking a practitioner can receive. According to Hawtof, this is because the goal is to make physicians continue to improve their quality. “Our goal is to help make them a better doctor.”

“To me, OPPE, FPPE, peer review, behavior review, are all key pieces to a credentialing cycle. These are not separate things, they all relate to each other. When it is about recredentialing and quality, I think it helps the medical staff see its purpose and keeps it from being punitive.”

Source: The OPPE Toolbox: Field-tested Documents for Credentialing, Competency, and Compliance