THE MEDICAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THE MEDICAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE



The Medical Executive Committee

The medical executive committee (MEC) was formed with the purpose of ensuring high quality care is provided to the patients by the American hospitals. It is the primary governance committee for medical staff members and carries out essential medical staff functions. This committee consist of various clinical directors of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and senior medical and administrative staff. This committee is also responsible for the development of health service standards, that should be maintained by every clinical center (Hopa, Fritz & Sheff, 2007, pp 5). The committee acts and works for the medical staff and other clinical professionals in the clinical center, and makes sure that rules and policies are being followed. It is also included in the responsibility of the committee to not only develop a policy and guidelines for the health centres, but also make it sure that every health center should follow these policies. In case on any mishap due to negligence, the ultimate responsibility lies on the committee.

The Medical Executive Committee (MEC) is responsible for making guidelines and policies for the clinical centres.is also provides the medical staff with a proper culture. The prime polarities that must optimized in order to achieve an effective meidcal staff include collegiality and excellence, freedom and commitment, appropriate independence and mutual accountability, appreciation and continuing performance improvement, stability and change. Healthcare has three primary goals: reduce costs, improve quality, and expand access. This not only ensures that the health care provided is good, but also give the medical staff an edge due to the fact that they are being provided exposure and trained and eductaed to perfection by MEC.

For decades, the U.S. Congress has passed one bill after another that purports to simultaneously meet all three goals. Unfortunately, so far, no single bill has been able to meet all three of these goals (Hopa, Fritz & Sheff, 2007, pp 6 - 10). While tax incentives for research have resulted in outstanding technological advancements in health care (and, thus, a higher quality of healthcare), and while programs such as Medicare and Medicaid have been able to radically expand access, each of these types of incentives and programs have almost always ended up costing many times that which was originally estimated. It has proven virtually impossible to improve quality and/or expand access while also reducing costs (Hopa, Fritz & Sheff, 2007, pp 11).

MEC's role has come into major play due to the fact that many technological advancements have completely changed the way medical staff work and medical assitance is provided. The mission of the medical staff is composed of quality assessment and improvement, credentialing and privileging, governance, administration and communication. The medical staff is immediately below the boards of directors and is not under influence of the CEO. However, the various paid medical managements that are aimed at assisting medical staff operate under the CEO (Hopa, Fritz & Sheff, 2007, pp 12 - ...