Rethinking the Role of the Medical Staff in the New Quality Era

Economic credentialing is only one of a number of sources of tension between medical staffs and the hospitals to which they relate, which tensions are growing as the dynamics of health care change. In many ways, it is not unreasonable to ask ‘what is the value of the organized medical staff?’ in the current hospital environment. In our AGG Note, "The Organized Medical Staff: Should Anyone Care Any More?" we present information regarding the genesis and legal basis for the medical staff, how bylaws relate to the new environment, typical bylaws contents and typical bylaws mindsets. We offer 7 principles of interaction to improve and make more meaningful for physicians and hospitals their interactions in the interests of patient care quality along with 5 suggestions regarding how to revitalize and make easier certain key medical staff functions. We also review 5 of the hot potatoes in medical staff-hospital relationships including economic credentialing, EMTALA obligations, and cross-department privileging, among others.  For a more extensive consideration of these issues see Alice Gosfield's article "Whither Medical Staffs?: Rethinking the Role of the Staff in the New Quality Era.".

For related information see our discussion of our monograph for the AMA "Quality and Clinical Culture" below, and our work on the AMA's model medical staff bylaws, below.