Checklists offer help on off hours
Checklists are a good resource for helping staff assess situations that might or might not need intervention from a risk management professional, says R. Stephen Trosty, JD, MHA, ARM, CPHRM, president of Risk Management Consulting in Haslett, MI, and a past president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) in Chicago.
The checklists also should guidance on what to do immediately in such situations, even if the call is going out for a risk manager, he says.
Trosty says the checklists should include advice on these points:
• communication with physicians;
• contacting on-call administrators (where this exists);
• appropriate communication with family, patients, and other staff members;
• collecting and preserving evidence;
• appropriate documentation;
• the basis for contacting a risk manager;
• when a risk manager will next be in the facility.
Checklists should be reviewed annually by the risk manager and/or the corporate risk management staff to determine if any additional or new information is required.
The checklists, as well as the training, should include any legal issues that are relevant or required for your specific state.