Employee Management
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Good News for Pregnant Healthcare Workers
Pregnant healthcare workers face a personal choice to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, although emerging evidence suggests contracting the virus outweighs the risk of immunization. The CDC recommends lactating women can be vaccinated. However, the effects of the vaccines on pregnancy are unknown, though emerging trends look good.
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OSHA Steps in to Protect Healthcare Workers from COVID-19
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a National Emphasis Program to ensure employees in high-hazard industries like healthcare are protected from contracting SARS-CoV-2. But a somewhat controversial problem is that researchers are finding most of the COVID-19 infections in healthcare workers are acquired in the community.
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Vaccinated HCWs Can Be Trusted Voice to Communities, Colleagues
Healthcare workers (HCWs) immunized against COVID-19 can be trusted voices to instill vaccine confidence in their colleagues and communities, public health officials and clinicians emphasize. Role-modeling of immunization also might encourage HCWs who are reluctant to take a vaccine. In a recent poll of 1,327 HCWs, 27% said they do not plan to take a COVID-19 vaccine, or have not yet decided. Breaking down the results, 17% of the HCWs polled do not plan to take the vaccine, and 10% were undecided.
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Care Improved by Providing Better Feedback to Hospitalists
Providing detailed feedback to hospitalists, including key quality metrics, can improve the quality of care they provide patients, according to the results of a program at a Wisconsin medical college.
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Real-Time Surveys Reveal True Feelings About Registration
The patient experience is a priority for hospitals, but typical patient satisfaction surveys are not much help to revenue cycle departments. Surveys usually do not reveal which registrar is responsible for the patient’s impression. Also, some respond to every other question in the survey, but leave the registration-related question blank for some reason. To better understand the patient experience, registrars hand out “Please tell my manager how I did” cards. The idea is to encourage patients to respond right after, or even during, their registration experience.
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Huddles Vital to Effectively Conveying Important Safety, Risk Information
Frontline providers fully understand the importance of safety and risk information. However, considering the ease with which managers and colleagues can communicate such information, some of the most important messages can be lost or overlooked in the barrage of emails, texts, pages, alarms, and other alerts clinicians receive every day.
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The Struggle to Immunize Long-Term Care Staff
Almost two-thirds of healthcare workers in thousands of skilled nursing facilities have turned down the COVID-19 vaccine, even though the mortality rates of long-term care residents are among the highest of any population. Historically, long-term care workers have shunned influenza vaccinations, citing skepticism about the vaccine’s efficacy or that they do not get the flu. The COVID-19 vaccine raises its own set of suspicions. -
Safety Protocol Can Prevent Self-Harm Incidents
Patients often present to the ED with behavioral health concerns, but psychiatric experts recognize the environment is hardly optimal for easing anxiety or calming a troubled mind. Further, patients with psychiatric concerns often wait in the ED for extended periods before they are connected with appropriate care, a time that can be fraught with danger for individuals at risk for self-harm. Recognizing the safety challenges at issue, a multidisciplinary team at Massachusetts General Hospital developed and implemented a protocol aimed at protecting such patients. -
Hospital Reduces HAPI Rate by Half with Huddles, Rounds
A hospital that had struggled to reduce hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) has found success with an approach that emphasizes empowering frontline staff and consistent, structured huddles. After one year, the culture has changed, and HAPIs have been cut by 50%.
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Tips to Improve Relationships with Patients Over the Phone
Phone communications jumped in importance over the past year of the pandemic, but there are tactics case managers can use to improve their technique and build rapport with patients or clients over the phone. One tip is to listen for audible clues about the person’s mood and energy level.