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A woman suffering from severe discomfort in her mouth and throat area presented to the emergency department (ED) for treatment. Over the next two days, doctors passed the patient around as they refused to respond to their on-call duties.
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Risk managers will reap lessons from the experience of health care providers in the Gulf Coast for years to come, but one of the most apparent lessons from Hurricane Katrina should send you rushing to reassess your organization's disaster plans. What looks good on paper may not work at all in the midst of a major crisis in your community, some hospitals learned, and failing to plan adequately could set your organization up for tremendous liability in the aftermath of a disaster.
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The New Orleans experience should make risk managers aware that disasters rarely unfold the way you expected them to in all those planning sessions. If your plan for a major fire at your hospital involves moving patients to another facility down the street, what if that facility is out of action too? If your plan calls for evacuating patients to another city, what if all the roads are closed?
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Risk managers may be shocked to realize how much of their disaster plan relies on other entities beyond their control, says William Spratt, JD, a partner with the law firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart in Miami.
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Not all I'm sorry" laws offer the same level of protection for health care providers, notes a health care attorney who has studied the laws in several states. Risk managers should be familiar with their own state laws before they advise physicians about how much protection the legislation can offer.
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Question: What is the best way to define a fall" for the purposes of data collection and educating our staff about fall prevention strategies? Is it a fall if the patient slips but a staff member catches him before he actually falls? This seems important to keeping accurate records, and we're not sure what to tell staff about how to record and report those incidents.
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A national worker safety group says that mandatory flu shots are not justified for health care workers.
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News: A change in how trichloroacetic acid (TCA) was packaged translated to a patient being seriously burned and disfigured while undergoing a chemical peel to "touch up" her face-lift. The physician and pharmacist in what was identified as a second incident for each of them failed to appreciate the fact that the TCA had been repackaged and required a new formula for achieving the correct dosage. The patient was awarded $500,000, which was apportioned between the supplier (30%), pharmacist (40%), and physician (30%).
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Within days of Hurricane Katrina lashing the Gulf Coast states, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) reminded providers through mailed notices and news media announcements that the privacy rule allows patient information to be shared to assist in disaster relief efforts and in providing patients the care they need.
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The sixth in a planned series of seven HIPAA security rule educational papers deals with risk analysis and risk management. The rule's security management process standard has four required implementation specifications, including risk analysis and risk management.
