Who is your Jane Adele?

Karen Kondilis, editor of Medical Staff Briefing, wrote the following blog post. Although “Jane Adele” is fictional, she might sound scarily familiar to you.

If you have been in the medical staff field for some time, you have probably encountered a “Jane Adele.” Jane Adele is the physician who—you could never understand why—was granted privileges/membership to your medical staff, and surprise, surprise, continued to be disruptive once a part of your facility. There may have been a member or two of the credentials committee or medical executive committee who had reservations about granting this physician privileges, but in the end, those red flags and gut feelings were ignored because you needed a high revenue generating orthopedic surgeon on staff, no one wanted to deny the physician a livelihood, etc. etc. (You have heard all of the reasons.)

Then comes two OPPE/FPPE reports that should raise concern and remediation, but they are pushed to the side after Jane insists the data are incorrect and threatens to sue all medical staff members who were involved in the review. The waters are once again kept still, hoping the tide will not rise too high later. No patients have been injured (yet).

Then medical staff leaders and MSPs start to hear grumblings from Jane’s colleagues about her less-than-stellar performance and rude attitude in the OR. But because Jane has the loudest voice of all and has already threatened to sue any medical staff members who speak out against her, no one will file a formal complaint.

And then it happens. Jane seriously injures a patient during surgery and there is no choice but to revoke her privileges. Jane demands a fair hearing, insisting it was her incompetent staff who caused the injuries to the patient. Although your organization eventually “wins” the fair hearing, you have lost months of time, productivity among physicians involved in the hearing, $100,000 in legal fees, and the good vibe that surrounded your medical staff before Jane Adele came on board.

Sadly, you know all of this could have been avoided with a solid credentialing process or training of that process with your medical staff leaders. On that note, I encourage you to attend this year’s Credentialing Resource Center Symposium, where the saga of Jane Adele will be played out (from credentialing to revocation of privileges) by our expert panel of speakers. To see how Jane Adele will be incorporated into the 2015 CRC Symposium, click here.

If you plan to attend the CRC Symposium and get guidance for dealing with your own Jane Adele, book your seat now. The cut-off date for discounted rooms at Caesar's Palace is February 23.

Thanks for reading!

Mary Stevens, managing editor, Credentialing Resource Center