Design physician wellness activities around health, not discipline

The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) shone light on the importance of physician health when it created standard MS.11.01.01, which requires medical staffs to implement a process to identify and manage individual health issues for licensed independent practitioners that is separate from disciplinary processes. The agency does not require hospitals to have wellness committees, but many Joint Commission–accredited organizations created them in response to the standard. Some non–Joint Commission–accredited hospitals followed suit because having a physician wellness committee is considered a best practice.