Better Times Hospital is in crisis. The medical staff is deeply rooted in a departmental structure that relies heavily on committees, and few physicians want to serve on them. Joe, the medical staff president, has just finished reading Leading Change by John Kotter and has...
If you took on a new job, you’d expect your employer to tell you what your duties entailed, what time to show up, and how “good performance” is defined within your role. For physicians, that doesn’t always happen. They often arrive on their first day at a hospital with no rules or expectations...
Today, the medical staff president, hospital CEO, and board chair of Better Times Hospital are meeting to discuss a recent request. The cardiologists, CT surgeons, vascular surgeons, and interventional radiologists want to establish an integrated clinical service line, as...
The medical executive committee (MEC) at Better Times Hospital has proportional representation. Many years ago (no one is sure exactly when), the MEC agreed that each of the 15 clinical departments should have at least one seat on the MEC regardless of its size. For every...
Let's be honest-in the past, physicians at some organizations secured access to new devices and technologies by putting pressure on the hospital CEO. "The louder they yelled, the more likely they were to get what they wanted," says Virginia Gortych-Barnes, MD, physician...
There was a time when medical staff standards seemed simpler and they were all located in one place: the Medical Staff chapter of The Joint Commission's Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (CAMH). But things are different today. Standards that apply to the...
