Most people don't realize that hospitals are run by boards, and even for people who work in hospitals, the board is shrouded in mystery. Although it seems that one needs to know a secret handshake to gain insight into the board's inner workings, transparency is the new word on...
Change never really ends. Medical staff members, leaders, and hospital administrators at Better Times Hospital learned many valuable lessons from the medical staff governance change initiative, including the following...
To a patient, whether a physician is employed by the hospital or practices independently makes no difference, but for the medical staff office, keeping track of who is employed and who isn't can be a pain in the neck. Employed physicians must follow a set of rules that don't...
The guiding coalition at Better Times Hospital has revisited its original proposition, called 3-6-9. The original vision included three medical staff committees (the medical executive committee [MEC], credentials committee, and a single multispecialty peer review committee); six...
Back in the "old days," physicians who practiced in the community also practiced in the hospital, so defining who belonged in the active category was a breeze. But with the advent of hospitalists, medical staff categories have blurred, and it's beginning to affect which...
Almost every hospital employs physicians and expects to employ more in the future. Many hospitals have established service lines, and some of these have morphed into service line comanagement arrangements. Many hospitals have turned to more traditional business arrangements,...
