Healthcare Risk Management – December 1, 2017
December 1, 2017
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Obstetrics Strategies to Increase Safety, Reduce Liability Risk
OB/GYN always is a challenge for improving patient safety and avoiding malpractice exposure, but there are strategies that work. As always, communication is a key factor, along with staffing the appropriate clinical professionals when needed.
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Good Background Screening Crucial to Avoiding Liability
Proper background screening is critical for protecting patients and staff, as well as avoiding liability exposure that can come from allowing someone with a questionable history to work in your organization.
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FCRA Sets Strict Limits on Background Screens
The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn’t apply to background checks conducted in-house, but some state and local laws do. Employers must know what laws govern background checks in their particular state.
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Opioids Lead List of Drug-related Malpractice Claims
Opioids were the leading drug associated with medication-related malpractice claims, according to recent research from Boston-based medical liability insurer Coverys. The second most common claim was anticoagulants.
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EHR-related Claims Involve Design Issues, Entry Errors, Alert Fatigue
Two reports on the risks related to electronic health records reveal the broad range of alleged and actual user and system mistakes in recent EHR-related malpractice claims. The pace of these cases has grown rapidly over the last 10 years, the research indicates.
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Post-childbirth Sepsis Yields Largest Wrongful Death Verdict in Minnesota History
A wrongful death case involving a new mother resulted in Minnesota’s largest wrongful death verdict.
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Exclusion of Expert Witness Results in Successful Defense of Infection Case
In a failure-to-diagnose lawsuit, the court ultimately ruled in favor of the physician and hospital, granting their summary judgment motion. The exclusion of the plaintiffs’ expert witness under the critical Daubert case governing expert witnesses was the primary basis on which the summary judgment motion was granted.
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HHS May Be Taking Different Tack With HIPAA Enforcement
HHS and the Office for Civil Rights may be adopting a different approach to HIPAA compliance under the Trump administration, as evidenced by a notable reduction in enforcement actions in the past year. But don’t let down your guard just yet. HIPAA still has teeth.
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HIPAA Hampering Patient Engagement, But Solutions Exist
Risk managers and compliance officers have heard the same complaint from so many clinicians: Complying with HIPAA gets in the way of interacting well with patients. And they’re right.
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HHS Clarifies HIPAA as It Applies to Opioid Crisis
The HHS Office for Civil Rights has clarified how it expects healthcare providers to comply with HIPAA when they need to share patient information on opioid overdoses: Providers can share protected health information in limited ways during overdoses.
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Most Clinicians Admit to Sharing EMR Passwords
A majority of medical staff surveyed recently said they have accessed an electronic medical record system using a password improperly supplied by a fellow medical staffer, and explained that strict confidentiality rules can make it difficult to get the data needed to do their jobs properly.
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IT Workers Can Fall for Online Scams
Healthcare IT staff often assume they know what they’re doing when it comes to data security, and all the other employees are likely to create a data breach by falling for an online phishing scam or other hacking attempt. But a recent report suggests IT staff can make big mistakes, too.