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When it seems as though nearly everyone is on Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites, you can be assured that many of your employees are online chatting about everything under the sun including what happened at work that day. For health care employees, that can lead to a serious breach of privacy if they pass on protected health information.
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The popularity of social networking sites can be helpful when it comes to screening new employees and seeing what current employees are saying on the Internet, says Jeffrey M. Pincus, JD, a partner with the law firm of Lewis Johs in Melville, NY. More companies are searching for a job applicant's online presence as a way to investigate his or her background, he says.
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The best way to deal with the issue of hospital employees snooping in patient records and spreading private information may be with a contract and a specific policy about blogging or social networking, suggest two experts.
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At Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) in Seattle, staff are not only encouraged to speak up when they see errors or deficiencies that could harm a patient, they are required to do so. A patient safety alert (PSA) system obligates anyone seeing a dangerous situation to report it immediately, which then prompts an investigation.
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With hospitals all over the country realizing that there is a benefit in having the surgical team pause, take a breath, and double-check that everything is in order before proceeding, a hospital in Washington has formalized that process even more by using a checklist that the team can go through before starting the procedure. The simple procedure can have a major impact on patient safety, the hospital reports.
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A man went to the eye clinic at a local hospital complaining of chronic blurry vision in his left eye. The man was seen by a resident who removed the man's left eye contact lens and placed it in a contact lens case containing contact lens solution. When the contact lens was placed back into the man's left eye, the man felt a burning sensation. The resident removed the contact lens, but the man was thereafter diagnosed with corneal damage and superficial punctate keratitis. Within a few months, the man went completely blind.
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A pre-eclamptic pregnant woman developed HELLP syndrome. Treatment for the syndrome was unsuccessful, and an emergency cesarean was conducted when the baby was at 27 weeks gestation. At birth, the child was diagnosed as intrauterine growth-retarded and was placed in the neonatal ICU. The child was later diagnosed with anemia and, in light of multiple blood draws, required a blood transfusion
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One of the most difficult challenges in a health care setting is creating or changing culture, and this certainly applies to HIPAA compliance. Experts agree that engendering a culture of compliance requires a delicate combination of several strategies:
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Risk managers must mitigate the natural human temptation to snoop and gossip, because the potential legal ramifications can be huge, says Robert Wolin, JD, a partner with the law firm Baker Hostetler in Houston.
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General surgeons have become scarcer in hospitals across the country, many of them beaten down by diminishing payments and grueling work hours, and some lured away by specialized surgery niches that offer more money and a better lifestyle. That means hospitals are increasingly dependent on surgeons-for-hire.
