President's Message

Welcome to the A I duPont Hospital for Children MedicalStaff web page. As we begin 2007, the Medical Staff is operating under a reorganized format for committee structure and the Medical Executive Committee (MEC). These changes were adopted after consultation with The Greeley Company, a company specializing in medical staff operations, to streamline quality and policy operations and increase the efficiency of the Medical Executive Committee. Most of the traditional medical staff committees, such as Infection Control, Pharmacy and Therapeutics etc, are now under the umbrella of the hospital’s Performance and Safety Improvement Council. The Medical Staff continues to have input at this level through the participation of members of the MEC.

The MEC itself is comprised of 12 members:

• Sandra Hassink, MD - Medical Staff President
• James Reilly, MD - President Elect
• Rita Meek, MD - Hospital Medical Director
• Bernard J. Clark, III, MD - Physician-in-Chief
• Thomas Ferry - Chief Executive Officer
• Paul Kempinski - Chief Operating Officer
• Louanne Stratton, PhD, RN - Chief Nurse Executive
• Jeffrey Campbell, MD - Division Chief Member-at-Large
• William Mackenzie, MD - Department Char Member-at-Large
• Kirk Reichard, MD - Member-at-Large
• Michael Antunes, MD - Member-at-Large
• John Loiselle, MD - Member-at-Large

Monthly MEC meetings concentrate on the following areas:   Self Governance, Graduate Medical Education, Peer Review, Strategic Planning, and Credentialing and Privileging.  Our first two months have been spent working in this new format and you can see the report of our work as follows.

Self-Governance:

The Medical Executive Committee has designated a Policy Committee for the purpose of developing new Medical Staff policies, ongoing review of existing Medical Staff policies and providing Medical Staff input into Hospital-wide Patient Care policies where the Medical Executive Committee is identified as a stakeholder. The Policy Committee will report its recommendations to the Medical Executive Committee for all Medical Staff policies and will act in an advisory capacity for any Patient Care policies when the Medical Staff is designated as a stakeholder.  This committee has the discretion to bring forth issues needing further review to the Medical Executive Committee.   James Reilly, MD, President-Elect will chair the Policy Committee, along with Rita Meek, MD, Hospital Medical Director, serving as vice-chair.

Graduate Medical Education:

Steven Selbst, MD, presented a discussion of the ACGME Core Competencies that are used to evaluate resident physicians.  This informational presentation provided a background on the six core competencies that the Joint Commission is now requiring for ongoing review of Medical Staff competency.

Peer Review:

The peer review committee meets monthly under the chair, Dr. Rita Meek.  Dr. Meek presented a quality report and an overview of the Peer Review Committee function to the members and will be updating the MEC on relevant issues as part of the MEC oversight responsibility.

Strategic Planning:

Paul Kempinski, Chief Operating Officer, provided an update to the Medical Executive Committee on the Hospital and Nemours Strategic Plan, outlining areas of Medical Staff involvement.  Areas of focus will be addressed at future meetings in order to increase communication around the strategic planning process.

Credentialing and Privileging:

MEC reviews credentialing committee recommendations at each meeting. The MEC approved credentialing and privileging recommendations for the months of January and February.  New credentialing forms for Non-Pediatric Surgical Subspecialist and Surgical House Officer were discussed.

Sandra G. Hassink, MD
Medical Staff President