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 19-member implementation task force is charged with addressing challenges such as the standard’s prescriptiveness regarding the high level of associated details related to the requirements that must be in a facility’s medical staff bylaws.
The task force is expected to present its recommendations for revising MS.1.20 at the board?s Aug. 1 and 2 meeting, and to ask the board to authorize a field review of the recommended modified standard. Depending on the feedback that would be received during a field review, which would be conducted in August and September, the board could approve changes to the standard as soon as November, when it would also 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 of the Joint Commission. "This will also give the task force time to continue its work and allow the Board to fully consider any revisions."
Read more about the process here
