Healthcare Risk Management
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Flexible resident duty hour policies safe for patients?
Allowing residents the flexibility to work longer shifts than allowed in the United States and to take less time off between shifts to provide continuity of patient care is not associated with a greater risk to patients of early serious postoperative complications or death, according to study results involving 117 U.S. general surgery residency programs and 151 hospitals.
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HIPAA settlement addresses medical device users
Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington, MA, has agreed to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights. Lahey will pay $850,000 and will adopt a “robust” corrective action plan to correct deficiencies in its HIPAA compliance program, OCR reports. Lahey is a nonprofit teaching hospital affiliated with Tufts Medical School.
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Communication failure cited in 30% of med mal
Thirty percent of all medical malpractice claims involve a communication failure, according to a new report. These claims involve communication breakdowns in which acts, figures, or findings got lost between the individuals who had that information and those who needed it, across the spectrum of healthcare services and settings.
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$750K settlement shows need for organizationwide risk analysis
The University of Washington Medicine in Seattle has agreed to settle charges that it potentially violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Security Rule by failing to implement policies and procedures to prevent, detect, contain, and correct security violations.
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Safety culture critical to better surgical results
To achieve better results for surgical patients, hospitals tend to focus on technical issues such as surgeons’ skills and operating room equipment. However, a non-technical factor, the so-called “safety culture,” might be equally important in delivering high-quality patient care, a team of investigators report in a study published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons in advance of print publication.
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AORN revamps retained objects guidelines
Surgical items are mistakenly left inside a patient 4,500 to 6,000 times a year, according to the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), which is updating its guidelines for avoiding that error.
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Concurrent surgeries now limited in MA
The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine recently approved a rule to regulate the practice of physicians performing procedures on more than one patient at a time.
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Staff disciplined, investigations launched when patient ejected after discharge
A Florida hospital is under investigation and has reassigned three staff members who were involved with an incident in which a patient was removed from the facility against her will and then died outside the hospital.
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Frontline safety issues are not always heard by hospital and health system leaders
When hospital leaders conduct safety rounds at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System in Baltimore, MD, they don’t rely on just friendly chat and a checklist of policies and procedures.
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Malpractice can begin at the front desk with simple errors by admissions staff
Seemingly simple errors at the front desk can have devastating effects on patient safety and may expose the hospital to litigation that is more damaging than malpractice lawsuits, warns a lawyer who has studied the issue.