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Ken Powers
Media Relations Manager
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kpowers@jointcommission.org
(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – June 3, 2008) The Joint Commission’s Board of Commissioners approved the continued engagement of the Implementation Task Force on the revision of medical staff standard MS.1.20. The Board also suspended the July 2009 date for implementation of the current revised standard.
It is anticipated that the Task Force will be prepared to present its recommendations for revising MS.1.20 at the Board’s August 1-2 meeting. The Board will be asked at that time to authorize a field review of the recommended modified standard MS.1.20. Depending on the feedback received during the field review, which will be conducted in August and September, the Board will be requested to approve changes to the standard at its November 14-15 meeting. During that meeting, the Board will be requested to establish a new effective implementation date.
“Given the new timeline for the revision of MS.1.20, it was important to suspend the original effective implementation date and provide hospitals with adequate notice of at least 12 months of any revisions to the standard,” says Charles A. Mowll, executive vice president, The Joint Commission. “This will also give the Task Force time to continue its work and allow the Board to fully consider any revisions.”
At its June 2007 meeting, the Board of Commissioners approved revisions to the hospital standard MS.1.20 related to medical staff bylaws and associated rules and regulations and policies. Due to concerns regarding the implementation of this standard, the Board convened a 19-member Implementation Task Force to analyze the potential impact of implementing the revised standard. The Task Force is charged with addressing, for example, the standard’s prescriptiveness regarding the level of associated details related to the requirements that must be in the medical staff bylaws. The Task Force will consider whether these details should be in the medical staff bylaws as opposed to rules and regulations or policies.
Editor’s note: The following is a listing of Task Force members.
Stephen A. LaTour, PhD, Task Force Chair
President
Calder LaTour Inc.
Evanston, IL
Gene Blumenreich
Trustee
New England Baptist Hospital
Boston, MA
Tucker Bonner, FACHE
President and CEO
King’s Daughters Hospital
Temple, TX
Gregory L. Brown
Assistant General Counsel
Legacy Health System
Portland, OR
Jill Fainter
Hospital Corporation of America
Nashville, TN
Paul A. Gitman, MD
New York
James Goodyear, MD
Lansdale, PA
Jay A. Gregory, MD
Oklahoma
Lance Grenevicki, DDS, MD, FACS
West Melbourne, FL
Stephen House, MD
Miamisburg, OH
Paul Kettler, MD
Minneapolis, MN
Ann O’Connell
Nossaman, Gunter, Knox, and Elliott, LLP
Sacramento, CA
Maynard Oliverius
President and CEO
Stormont-Vail HealthCare
Topeka, KS
Carol A. Ostermann, CPMSM, CPCS
San Jose, CA
Thomas Russell, MD, FACS
Chicago, IL
Garry Scheib
Executive Director
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
Sarah J. Schermerhorn
Trustee
Ellis Hospital
Schenectady, NY
Jeffrey Selberg
President and CEO
Exempla Healthcare
Denver, CO
Elizabeth Snelson
Medical Staff Attorney
St. Paul, MN