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Have you made your labor and delivery unit a veritable fortress with high-tech equipment and strict policies to prevent infant abductions, while leaving the back door wide open? Children in the pediatrics unit can be just as vulnerable as infants, experts say, but risk managers too often put all their focus on protecting the newborns while devoting relatively few resources to other young patients.
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A nonpunitive policy on investigating errors yields better results, especially if you couple it with an amnesty period that promises employees can confess their mistakes without threat of punishment, says Elaine Shaw, director of quality resources at Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, IN.
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An 83-year-old man went to a hospital to visit his wife. He slipped and fell on an escalator, injuring his head.
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Although a nursing home was aware of a male patients general disorientation and history of self-destructive behavior, the man opened a fifth-floor window and fell to the pavement.
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A lawsuit alleging elder abuse and neglect was settled recently for $1 million, and the plaintiffs insisted that there be no confidentiality clause.
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Risk managers facing claims of newborn brain injury have more support for what the physicians have probably been saying all along: The tragic outcome wasnt caused by anything that happened in your facility.
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Larry Veltman, MD, chairman of the department obstetrics and gynecology at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR, and medical director of the healthcare professional liability division for the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies, offers this list of the most common failures that lead to OB malpractice lawsuits.
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Does the security rule specify how a risk analysis must be conducted?;
How should passwords be chosen to ensure security?; Can a home health
agency post thank-you letters from patients on a bulletin board that
can be seen by staff and other patients?
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Rhode Islands Seacrest DocSecurity surveyed more than 500 physicians
nationwide late in 2003, questioning them on requirements that
insurance companies ask for before underwriting physicians and
hospitals for insurance, and concluded that while physicians generally
believe they are HIPAA-compliant, in fact they have only met a portion
of the HIPAA requirements, leaving them vulnerable to lawsuits.
