Getting the Supervising Provider Right

Trainees (medical students and residents) select a "Supervising Prescriber" (synonymous with "Authorizing Provider") when logging on to Connect Care, as previously posted. We've updated a previous FAQ about why this is important and what Connect Care activities are impacted. A tip and demo shows how Supervising Providers can be quickly changed, if needed, when switching between patients.

Note: selection of a Supervising Provider ceased to be part of trainee logons as of December 8, 2020. Please see the Manual for information about how this workflow is largely automated. The rest of this posting still applies.

We encounter situations where trainees do not select the correct Authorizing Provider when this needs to be explicitly indicated. Overriding the default Authorizing Provider is most likely needed when trainees are serving on consultation services or seeing emergency department patients on behalf of a consulting service. 

Most of the time this does not have much impact for inpatients. However, it determines who is called for critical test results and, understandably, physicians do not want to be called about patients they do not cover.

A simple test when entering orders, especially for tests, is consideration of which attending (staff) physician would need to be called for support in case of difficulty... for that patient at that time.

The authorizing physician is NOT the resident training program director, a more senior trainee, or some other physician not directly accountable for the clinical care that the trainee is providing at the time an order is entered.

There are many new trainees using Connect Care starting today. Please check the links above and take care when selecting a Supervising Prescriber at logon.