The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) has a mandate to promote and foster excellence in health care governance, promote a culture of shared accountability, and assist hospitals in their efforts to enhance governance of their organizations.
In support of this mandate, the OHA has been developing for hospitals a new, comprehensive credentialing resource, the Professional Staff Credentialing Toolkit.
The OHA engaged Dykeman Dewhirst O’Brien LLP to produce the Toolkit under the guidance of an OHA working group with representation from board directors, Chiefs of Staff, CEOs, and Department Directors from different hospital types. The Toolkit will provide practical guidance to assist hospitals in managing one of their most critical resources: Board-Appointed Professional Staff (physicians, dentists, midwives, and extended class nurses). It explores the relationship between hospitals and the Board-Appointed Professional Staff who are granted “privileges” to practice at a specific hospital, and covers such areas as:
- Legal Context;
- Roles and Responsibilities;
- Planning and Recruitment;
- Initial Appointments;
- Reappointments;
- Everyday Management;
- Performance Evaluations/Management;
- Suspending, Restricting or Revoking Privileges;
- Resignation and Retirement;
- Maintaining Credentialing Files; and,
- Issues specific to Academic Hospitals.
A draft of the toolkit has been completed and has been reviewed by OHA staff as well as the OHA’s Physician Leadership Council. The draft has also been distributed to key stakeholders for feedback, including the College and Association for physicians, dentists, midwives and nurse practitioners; the Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario; Cowan Insurance; and the Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Ontario.
The OHA is currently reviewing feedback from these groups, and is aligning the toolkit with the OHA/OMA Prototype Board Appointed Professional Staff By-law.
The Credentialing Toolkit is on schedule to be released to members in February 2012. For more information, contact Sundeep Sodhi, Governance Consultant (ssodhi@oha.com).