With the rise of hospitalists, ambulatory surgery centers, and endoscopy suites, almost all hospitals find themselves confronting a growing number of low- and no-volume providers. At the same time, regulators have raised the bar regarding the need to link privileges with demonstrated current competence.

In 2019, more than 41 million patient records were breached, nearly tripling the number of breaches from 2018, according to a report from Protenus and DataBreaches.net. The 41.4 million patient records breached in 2019 nearly matches the total from the previous three years combined (47.9 million).

Your medical staff should have a policy that places the burden on the applicant to prove his or her clinical competence and provide all the information the medical staff leaders, credentials committee, MEC, and governing body need to make evidence-based decisions regarding membership and privileges.

The CRC team has developed a justification letter that you can use to explain to your organization and supervisor why you should attend the 2020 CRC Symposium. Held from April 20-21 at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, the 2020 CRC Symposium gives MSPs, physician leaders, and quality professionals the chance to earn CEUs in their field while networking with colleagues from around the nation. Whether you’re a newly minted professional or an industry veteran, a symposium regular or a first-time attendee, you won’t want to miss out on the industry’s premier credentialing event. Click here to download the letter and customize it to fit your specific needs.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (the “Court”) affirmed a district court’s granting of summary judgement, finding that an employer may offer to hire an applicant on the condition that she undergoes a medical examination confirming her ability to perform the job’s essential duties.

Find out what’s happening in the world of federal healthcare regulations by reviewing some recent headlines from across the country

Consider alarm fatigue. Providers are supposed to respond with the same alacrity to each of the hundreds of pings, alerts, or notifications they get every day. But these systems are often so excessive and poorly cali­brated that staff become numb to them. Then, when an important alert is inevitably missed, a patient can be hurt.

CRC members can peruse all of the online articles from the February 2020 issues of CRCJ and MSB—as well as full-color PDFs—here:

• CRCJ
• MSB

To access the relevant full-issue PDF, select "DOWNLOAD FULL ISSUE" at the top of the page.