Effective physician credentialing. Properly monitoring medical staffs can protect hospitals from liability.

Healthcare facilities today are finding themselves increasingly liable in malpractice suits if they have hired incompetent physicians or allowed them to remain on the medical staff. Thus appropriate processes for physician credentialing are important. The hospital medical staff has the authority to evaluate medical staff membership status and clinical privileges and to take disciplinary and corrective action. If the medical staff fails to do its job, however, the hospital governing board is responsible for making sure the credentialing process is carried out properly. The same rules apply to the reapplication process. The hospital must associate its credentialing process with its prevailing concern for high-quality patient care and document that ideal. Preservation of market share and elimination of competition must never enter into the credentialing process. Well-framed hospital bylaws will help provide protection from liability, if they are followed correctly. If a hospital deviates from its bylaws when processing an application or granting clinical privileges, it risks a lawsuit. Congress has passed the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986-an act that not only protects patients from incompetent practitioners but also can help limit facility's risk of liability by requiring facilities and third-party payers to report any adverse actions taken against physicians. The National Practitioner Data Bank is an information clearing-house opened in September 1990 that hospitals must use to report and obtain professional information about physicians.