Staffing the OPPE review
The good news is that professional practice evaluation programs are becoming more meaningful and relevant and, as a result, they are having more positive effects on quality of care. However, this evolution also presents challenges to organizations, whose traditional approaches may no longer support these programs. Thus, more find it necessary to modify their approaches so they provide staff support to the medical staff organization. The medical staff must ensure that support staff members have expertise in clinical quality improvement. Consider the following support staff strategies:
- Partner MSPs with quality improvement or peer review professionals to support competency management programs. This strategy has promise, but because each department has its own reporting structure, the priorities of each group and how each group perceives its role may not always align. To be successful, this approach requires clearly defined procedures and work flow across the two groups. Additionally, the managers of the two collaborating departments must be committed to measuring the results of their mutual efforts to support the competency management program.
- Merge the medical staff services and quality improvement departments to unify management and to ensure absolute alignment of working relationships, work flow, priorities, and goals.
- Incorporate clinical staff into the medical staff services department to help evaluate clinical competence and privilege requests. For example, RNs who work in the medical staff services department bring a clinical eye to the evaluation of credentialing, privileging, OPPE, and FPPE and can help facilitate those reviews along with medical staff leaders. Evolving job titles for these types of professionals include evaluation analyst, privileging analyst, administrative analyst, and quality improvement analyst. The term “administrative analyst” will be used in this book.
There is no magic staffing ratio for these types of scenarios. The resources required to support the program are directly related to the scope of the entire competency management program (not just OPPE), the structure of the medical staff (divisions versus departments), and the degree to which the organization can effectively automate tasks.