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A former University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Healthcare System employee who says he had no idea it was a crime to look at patient records will have four months in prison to think about it.
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Health information exchanges (HIEs), which support secure electronic sharing of patient health information among caregivers, patients, public health authorities, and health care and payment services providers across different setting and geographical areas, are among the most promising initiatives in health care, but there are privacy and security issues that should concern risk managers.
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Pernille Ostberg, president of Matrix Home Care in West Palm Beach, FL, offers these tips for improving background checks on health care workers:
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Background checks for criminal records or other questionable behavior should be a standard risk management strategy for all health care providers, and meeting minimum requirements is not the best way to go, say providers and experts in background screens.
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Wandering and elopement exist in all health care facilities, but long-term care facilities are at most risk because of the nature of the residents' conditions. Patients with Alzheimer's disease, dementia, autism, and others who cannot help themselves pose a high risk, no matter the setting.
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The theft ring at Parkland Hospital in Dallas was discovered and self-reported to all appropriate agencies by Parkland's director of pharmacy services, Vivian Johnson, according to a letter the hospital sent to the State Board of Pharmacy.
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Drug theft is a vexing problem for any health care provider, but a health system in Texas is finding that the thefts can be on such a scale that federal investigators become interested and the community starts asking how the provider could have let the thieves continue for so long.
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According to a survey released in January by Falls Church, VA-based CSC, only two-thirds of hospitals have identified gaps in their current systems to meet the requirements for meaningful use, as set forth by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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Robert Russo, MD, FACR, a radiologist in Bridgeport, CT, advises risk managers to watch for these common ways in which radiology findings can fall through the cracks and never be reported.
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In radiology, the real malpractice risk begins after the technicians have performed the imaging study and the doctor has interpreted the results. It's what happens to that information from that point on that usually determines whether a lawsuit will result.
