Reference no: EM132229759

This question explores planning, epidemiology, policy, legal and staffing issues.

Over the years the local community hospital has extended staff privileges to all area physicians, residing within 50 miles of the hospital. In exchange for being allowed on staff, the physicians take turns serving as on-call for the hospital’s emergency department (ED). The hospital’s oversight of the physicians has been limited to checking for current licensure, assuming that if they are licensed that they are ‘safe’ to have on staff. However, there have been some negative rumors circulating about the conduct of some of the older physicians. And, last year, the hospital was sued for malpractice several times along with two specialty physicians who made errors when as on-call physician in the ED. While the population in the hospital’s service area has remained fairly steady, the number of physicians, especially specialists in rare, or obscure, specialties residing near the hospital has increased dramatically. Some of the specialist physicians can become fairly competitive. As the director of clinical staffing, you have been instructed to conduct a review of all of the current physicians on staff and to develop a set of policies to guide in the review and assessment of new and old applicants. In designing these new policies, you have multiple goals, first it’s to assure that the current staff is performing at high levels, to ensure that the ED is adequately staffed, to develop more stringent contractual arrangements with the physicians, and to assess the staffing needs of the hospital based on the demographics of the area served by the hospital.