Role of Medical Director

Communication

Skilled Nursing News reported in a recent webinar sponsored by MatrixCare discussing collaboration between physicians and nursing homes. SNFs are required to have a medical director – a physician responsible for coordinating care at the facility – by law. However, COVID showed improvement was long overdue. COVID is the catalyst for significant change in the role of medical director. The partnership between nursing staff and medical directors improved over the last year.

“When we look at how much education and how much co-management took place this year, I don’t think I’ve ever seen medical directors and nursing staff work more closely and more hand-in-hand as part of an interdisciplinary team,” one advocate said during the webinar. “Quality went up, outcomes improved, and there was a lot more collegiality and teamwork happening that I saw across all of our corporate partners.”

Data Analysis

Dr. Rayvelle Stallings is the corporate medical officer at the Norcross, Ga.-based operator PruittHealth. He emphasized the importance of clinical metrics and data analysis.

“Whether it was actually monitoring temperatures and O2 stats, we could pull up a dashboard everyday on our COVID patients,” Stallings said.

Prior incident and issues can help staff prevent future problems. The need for clinical transparency includes communications with staff. This meant using social media and putting information on smart devices.