SME: Medical Director
Last Review Date: 6 /6/07
At the time of admission, the Patient Registration office assigns the patient
to an attending physician.
Changing the attending physician can occur in the following circumstances:
 | Transfer to another attending physician at the patient's request or for clinical purposes |
| Termination of an attending physician from a specific unit because of a assignment or because s/he is leaving the facility |
| Planned absences |
| Unplanned absences |
This table describes the process of transferring a patient to another attending physician:
Stage |
Description |
1 |
Patient request for physician change is handled administratively between Nursing department and Patient Registration with transferring MD contacting new MD. |
2 |
The transferring physician contacts the accepting attending physician before the transfer occurs. |
3 |
The current attending physician or resident writes an order to transfer a patient to another attending physician. |
4 |
The unit secretary or the registered nurse enters the order into Sunrise. |
5 |
The current attending physician or resident writes a transfer note summarizing the clinical course to date. |
6 |
The accepting attending physician cosigns the transfer summary with the accepting physician. |
This table describes what the attending physician does in case of termination:
Stage |
Description |
1 |
The physician writes an order in the chart transferring the patient to a new attending physician. |
2 |
The attending physician writes and cosigns a transfer summary of the clinical course to date with the accepting physician. |
3 |
The unit secretary or registered nurse enters the order into Allegra. |
The attending physician notifies the following departments about his/her absence and coverage:
| Patient Registration |
| Health Information Management |
| Patient Account Services |
| Nursing Administration |
| Data Management |
This table describes what the attending physician does in case of planned absences:
Stage |
Description |
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1 |
The attending physician arranges coverage of his/her service by another attending physician if a Float M.D is available. |
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2 |
The attending physician informs the Medical Director's office of the arrangements at the time when s/he requests leave. Of no M.D. is available Medical Director's office arranges coverage. |
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3 |
The physicians involved must report any changes to Medical Director's office in the coverage arrangements. |
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4 |
The Medical Director's office issues a memo to the appropriate departments. |
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5 |
Is the attending physician leaving for more than three business days?
|
This table describes what the attending physician does in case of unplanned absence:
Stage |
Description | ||||
1 |
The attending physician notifies the Medical Director's office as soon as possible. | ||||
2 |
The attending physician arranges coverage by phone or designate someone to contact other attending physicians until someone is found to agree to cover. | ||||
3 |
Is the absence for more than three days?
|
The Joint Commission : Medical Staff
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