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For traditional risk management concerns, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) actually might offer hope, says Ruselle Robinson, JD, an attorney at Boston-based Posternak Blankstein & Lund. A goal of the ACA is to improve quality of care and make it more patient-centered while reducing costs, so success in those areas should result in lower risk and liability for providers, he says.
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After an analysis of national malpractice claims, patient safety researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, estimate that a surgeon in the United States leaves a foreign object such as a sponge or a towel inside a patients body after an operation 39 times a week, performs the wrong procedure on a patient 20 times a week, and operates on the wrong body site 20 times a week.
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News: A 43-year-old man presented to the emergency department with complaints of chest pain.
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As provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) come into play this year and for the next several years, the way healthcare is provided could change drastically, and that change has the potential for new or increased risks. At the same time, healthcare providers are taking on more risk through readmission penalties, bundled payments, and population health payments.
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News: A 59-year-old woman was discharged from a hospital after undergoing treatment for a clogged dialysis port.
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Hospital risk managers need to think about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is changing the laws governing fraud and abuse, says Kathy Tayon, JD, shareholder with the law firm of Fowler White Boggs in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
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In the recent settlements regarding discrimination against people with hearing disabilities, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that at each of the eight facilities, a person who is deaf sought to access healthcare services and was denied a needed sign language interpreter.
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A first-of-its-kind video monitoring system used to measure hand-washing compliance at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) in Manhasset, NY, is being expanded to include cameras in operating rooms (ORs) at a sister facility, Forest Hills (NY) Hospital.
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With more vendors qualifying as business associates under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), some covered entities are wondering just where the responsibility lies for making that determination and ensuring compliance. The consensus is that the healthcare provider must be responsible, partly to protect yourself.
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Hospitals participating in the "Healthy Tennessee Babies are Worth the Wait" partnership reduced preventable early elective deliveries by 75% over seven months, to 3.5% of all births, according to data released recently by the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA).
