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The Ohio Supreme Court says the state's open records law takes precedence over HIPAA privacy requirements.
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A large hospital system has seen a 45% reduction in new obstetrical claims after implementing a series of steps that focus on the high-risk factors most likely to contribute to birth injuries, and similar drops were seen in categories such as mechanical injuries and birth trauma.
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Vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) was tied to a number of obstetrics claims in the Hospital Corp. of America (HCA) system, and inexperience in this procedure may have contributed to the problem.
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Sexual misconduct or harassment of patients in health care can be a major liability risk and probably happens more than you think, say a risk manager and attorney who are experienced in dealing with such issues.
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Sexual boundary violations often are not overtly "wrong" until you put all the pieces together and see that the health care professional is no longer maintaining a professional distance from the patient.
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Allegations of sexual misconduct must be taken seriously, and risk managers should have steps in place to both prevent them and respond appropriately.
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Nearly 9% of hospitals have no patient safety systems plan, according to recent research suggesting that risk managers need to reevaluate how they are striving to meet the Institute of Medicine safety goals.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued a new Sentinel Event Alert that urges special attention to the accuracy of medications given to patients as they transition from one care setting to another, or one practitioner to another.
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A morbidly obese woman went to the emergency department (ED) complaining of a headache. Although medical personnel ordered a computed tomography (CT) scan, the test could not be performed because the patient was too large to fit on the hospital's CT scan table.
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When Hospital Corp. of America (HCA) in Nashville, TN, began its focus on obstetrical malpractice claims, the parent company required all of its member hospitals to start collecting extensive data on all births and report on a quarterly basis.
