Member Focus

Title: Director of Education and Clinical Process Improvement
Facility Name: Atlas Healthcare Partners
City: Phoenix
State: Arizona
Length of time your facility has been an ASCA member: Four years

Do you require your surgeons to complete a minimum number of cases within a specified time frame to maintain their privileges? How many cases and over what period of time?

Our physicians are required to complete a minimum number of cases within a specified time frame in order to maintain privileges. All of our credentialed providers are required to be recredentialed every two years from their initial date of appointment to our medical staff. Active staff consists of physicians who are regularly involved in the care of patients in the centers. The volume of annual cases necessary to achieve and maintain active status is 12 cases per year or 24 cases prior to reappointment. This allows the centers to complete ongoing evaluations to determine clinical competency.

In order to maintain privileges, an Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE) is performed to evaluate clinical processes and outcomes, as well as identify opportunities for professional performance improvement. The centers provide OPPEs each year to the Medical Executive Committee and the governing board for review and reappointment after the two years.

Do you audit your janitorial and housekeeping staff? For what purpose?

We have monthly infection prevention audits that help to ensure that the centers maintain a safe environment of care for our patients. In addition to this monthly audit, our housekeeping team documents the cleaning that is performed daily.