The structure of the medical staff office (MSO) depends on the defined responsibilities and functions of the department and the number of full time employees. Define the tasks related to each function and the time required to complete each task. Based on the defined tasks and time, develop a detailed master calendar of each function. The calendar should include tasks that your office must carry out annually and monthly.

In a recent Massachusetts General Hospital webinar, Neil Naik, MD, emergency medicine simulation education director at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, offered physicians suggestions on how to improve their bedside manner as they transitioned to providing care via telemedicine, which for many, is not a modality they were very familiar with prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When addressing disruptive physician behavior, organizations must understand an often confusing phrase: zero tolerance. Many medical staffs are adopting a zero-tolerance policy with regard to disruptive behavior, but some hospitals are confused about what exactly zero tolerance entails. This confusion is understandable because this phrase has been defined in two ways: strict and less strict.

A healthcare organization’s culture is what drives behavior, which in turn drives outcomes. If the organization as a whole has embraced a culture that encourages adverse-event reporting without punitive consequences, while at the same time requiring the assumption of responsibility when an adverse event has occurred, the end result is what is known as a “just culture.”

CRC members can peruse all of the online articles from the September 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.