Below are the February Medical Staff Updates. As a reminder, all providers must complete the attestation at the bottom of this page by February 28.
CMO Message
Entering the second month of 2015, Kaleida Health is accelerating the pace of alignment and accountability in every aspect of care we provide. As a medical staff and medical leadership, we are fully aligned with hospital leadership, nursing and our supportive care partners.
To achieve our 2015 quality and patient safety goals, the top priorities include keeping patients safe by decreasing hospital acquired infections and falls; improving patient outcomes by decreasing mortality and readmissions; and hardwiring an environment of compassionate care.
Internally, each patient safety event will undergo a multidisciplinary review to identify opportunities for improvement, and lead to a quality improvement plan designed to fix systems issues and prevent “déjà vu” events.
Externally, Kaleida Health continues to strengthen relationships with community partners to fulfill its mission to advance the health of our community.
As progress continues on the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and the new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, we are counting on the medical staff to lead the organization’s transformation by continuing to provide world-class, patient-centered health care in all specialties and at all sites.
With the support of the medical staff, Kaleida Health will lead in quality, innovation and the patient experience.
David Hughes, MD, MPH
Kaleida Health
Colin McMahon, MD
Buffalo General Medical Center
David Pierce, MD, FACEP
Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital and DeGraff Memorial Hospital
Stephen Turkovich, MD
Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo
AmeriMed Consulting
Kaleida Health is engaging AmeriMed Consulting to develop a Medical Staff Development Plan. The plan will help guide strategic staffing, recruitment, retention and service-line development decisions, as well as ensure services adhere to Federal regulatory requirements and meet community needs.
To accurately evaluate access to services, AmeriMed Consulting must gather and analyze information from all physicians in the community about practice characteristics. Your office may receive a call from AmeriMed Consulting asking brief questions to identify which physicians work within your practice, where they spend time during a typical week in practice, whether you are currently accepting new patients from Medicare or Medicaid, and how long a typical wait time is to schedule a new patient with your practice.
Physicians will also receive a confidential survey to share more detailed concerns about access and community services. Those surveys will be mailed directly back to AmeriMed who will share aggregate information with Kaleida Health in the context of this project.
Kaleida Health appreciates your cooperation with providing as much information as you feel comfortable sharing for this study.
If you have any questions about the project, please contact Patty Vorpahl, vice president of physician services and Medical Staff Office, at 859-8060.
Save the Date – Medical Staff Meeting
All physicians are invited to the semi-annual Medical/Dental Staff meeting on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at Salvatore’s Italian Gardens Restaurant, 6461 Transit Road, Depew, NY 14043.
Details and invitation to follow.
Kaleida Health Libraries
Do you need to request an article or book? Do you want someone to help you edit, submit and publish a manuscript? Are you looking to transform information into evidence-based health care? Kaleida Health Libraries can help.
Kaleida Health Libraries support the patient care needs and lifelong learning requirements of hospital staff, community-based healthcare providers, patients, family members and caregivers by insuring access to the most current information in all formats.
Kaleida Health’s librarians are highly skilled at finding useful references and have the ability to turn raw information into knowledge and information.
Providers also have access to HUBNET, the online information resource network providing access to databases such as Medline, DynaMed, Lexicomp, more than 3,000 electronic journals, and over 70 electronic books.
For more information, visit http://www.kaleidahealth.org/library.
Nurse Practitioner Collaborative Relationships
While the Nurse Practitioner Modernization Act no longer requires a written practice agreement between an experienced nurse practitioner (defined as 3,600 hours of practice or more) and a collaborating physician, the law does not explicitly address the previous limitation of the scope of a nurse practitioner’s privileges to that possessed by the collaborating physician.
As outlined in Kaleida Health’s new policy “Nurse Practitioner Collaborative Relationships” (MED.16), Kaleida Health will still require collaborating agreements between a nurse practitioner and collaborating physician in the following situations:
- New Appointment – A collaborating agreement will be required for all newly appointed nurse practitioners. The General Indemnification Agreement will also be required for applicants who are not employed by Kaleida Health
- Addition or Change of Department – A collaborating agreement will be required when a nurse practitioner currently on staff adds or changes her department. The General Indemnification Agreement will also be required for applicants who are not employed by Kaleida Health
- Reappointment – The nurse practitioner will need to attest to 3,600 hours of practice in their current collaborating physician’s department and the collaborating physician will need to sign the attestation
Contact the Medical/ Dental Staff Office for copies of the Nurse Practitioner Practice Agreement, General Indemnification Agreement, and Nurse Practitioner Collaborative Relationship Attestation.
Medical Staff Attestation - February 2015
By submitting this attestation, I confirm that as a member of the medical staff I have read, understand and will comply with the information included in this email from Kaleida Health.
| Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required. |