Leadership | 09.20.21
NAMSS 2021 Roundtable Addresses Practitioner Reappointment and Continuous Monitoring
by NAMSS Staff
On September 9, 2021, the NAMSS Board of Directors and Government Relations team hosted the seventh annual NAMSS Roundtable, Focused Revision: Moving to a Three-Year Practitioner Reappointment Schedule and Enhancing Continuous Monitoring. This year’s Roundtable took place virtually and focused on considerations for extending the practitioner reappointment cycle and enhancing continuous monitoring.
The following organizations attended the 2021 Roundtable:
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)
- American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS)
- American Hospital Association (AHA)
- American Medical Association - Organized Medical Staff Services (AMA-OMSS)
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
- Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB)
- Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA)
- ACHC – Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP)
- The Joint Commission (TJC)
- Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)
- Centura Health
NAMSS President, Aimee Woolley-Randall, provided the Roundtable’s keynote address, which set up the discussion by detailing how the ongoing public health emergency has exasperated practitioner-credentialing and privileging processes—a system already burdened with inefficiencies. Aimee’s remarks focused particularly on the current overlap and resulting bandwidth-induced limitations on MSPs who perform both practitioner reappointment and continuous monitoring face. Given the resources and time required for reappointment assessment, the process is nearly continuous with uninterrupted monitoring.
A panel conversation followed Aimee’s address that included the practitioner (AMA-OMSS), hospital system (Centura Health) and accrediting body’s (TJC) perspectives. Mike Dugan, FSMB’s Chief Operating Office, moderated the panel discussion, which highlighted the challenges of the current system, the need to change with the evolving healthcare landscape and the opportunity to standardize excellence. This standardization comes from educating practitioners, MSPs and other hospital personnel on best practices for assessing practitioner competency as telehealth, state compacts and other innovations shed light on an outdated and inefficient system.
Ahead of the 2021 Roundtable, NAMSS issued a position statement supporting efforts to extend practitioner reappointment to three years and establishing standardized best practices for continuous monitoring. Roundtable attendees recognized the critical role MSPs play in ensuring practitioner competency and patient safety, as well as their role in realizing effective and positive change.
Calls for change continue to grow as the practitioner-credentialing system strains under current pressures. Accompanying this call for change is recognition that revision must come through stakeholder consensus that not only includes MSPs but also emphasizes how the MSP is a key player in envisioning, implementing and sustaining realistic and effective innovation.
In accordance with the Tomorrow’s MSP mission, MSPs have an opportunity to take a leading role in not only facilitating change by communicating best practices but also establishing these practices.
Look for more information about the Roundtable in a forthcoming Roundtable Report, as well as multi-stakeholder initiatives that NAMSS will help lead to improve both the reappointment and continuous monitoring processes.