Jan 25, 2015

Input needed on revisions to Medical Staff Rules and Regulations

Two new changes have been proposed to the Medical Staff Rules and Regulations, and the Medical Executive Committee would like to know what you think. The proposed changes:

• Delete the pager requirement for medical staff. You can read the detailed proposal here.
• Allow a non-physician representative of the Rapid Response Team to initiate a consultation with a physician on behalf of the attending physician. You can read the second rule in its entirety here.

Feedback on the proposed revisions is due before Feb. 26. Please send comments to Kelli Fussell or directly to Dr. Michael Hanslits, Medical Staff president, or Dr. Kendall Graven, Medical Staff president elect. 

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Maurice Collada, MD, neurosurgeon, Medical Staff Engagement Committee Chair

Next week, you will receive in your inbox an email from INTEGRATED Healthcare Strategies (aka: survey.coordinator@IHStrategies.com) asking for your participation in the medical staff engagement survey.

This survey is a culmination of more than six months of work by the ELC, QOC and MSEC to find a tool that would effectively capture your thoughts and provide for benchmarking nationally.

The survey selection committee screened several vendors and found that INTEGRATED, with more than 40 years' experience in physician engagement and benchmarking, to be the best fit for our needs.

The survey implementation committee helped design the survey which will include questions about engagement, leadership, staffing, resources, services and more.

INTEGRATED will benchmark our responses so we can see how we are doing locally, AND compared to our peers nationally.

Please, when you see the email about the survey at the beginning of February, take a few minutes, click the survey link and complete it. It is essential for you to be heard and for us to see how we are doing as we work to improve engagement and satisfaction.

All individual responses are confidential. Your opinions are important to future planning, patient care, and in creating a desirable medical community for us to work.

If you do not see the survey in your email next week, please check your "junk" mail or email mary.maberry@salemhealth.org.

Thank you in advance for your time in taking the survey.

Get ready for Epic 2014!

Epic 2014 is coming Feb. 24 to a workstation near you! With improvements in managing orders, physician navigators, patient and chart search features, improved and customized themes, as well as more robust meaningful use capabilities, Epic 2014 represents a substantial move forward in patient care for Salem Health.   

Watch for physician-based e-learning modules coming to HealthStream near the end of January. These trainings will require an estimated 5 to 10 minutes each to complete and most physicians will be assigned three. We think you will find them helpful. Watch for further communications with links to toolkits and additional helpful resources as we move closer to the go-live date of Feb. 24!  

Pharmacy changes to Azithromycin IV orders
Matthew Tanner, Pharmacy Residency Program Director and Clinical Coordinator 

Azithromycin IV orders now have a five day auto-stop, and an option to order a Z-pak is now in Epic. If you have any questions, or other ideas for orders, please contact Matt Tanner in Pharmacy. 

Documentation Tip of the Week

 

How do you code when there isn't definitive evidence of an anticipated diagnoses? This is not an uncommon scenario, and fortunately there is a good answer. Claire E. Norton, MD, Medical Director, Continuum of Care, explains how to code probable and suspected diagnoses, as well as passing on some coding kudos, here.