Journal of healthcare risk management : the journal of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management
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Communication problems in healthcare are considered to be a leading cause of medical errors and often the root cause of sentinel events. This article will review the implementation of TeamSTEPPS in the two large health systems. The challenges in the implementation process, the successes, failures, and the obstacles will be discussed. Comparisons between the systems as well as lessons learned after implementation will be reviewed to enable hospitals and health systems to implement and sustain a successful TeamSTEPPS program.
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J Healthc Risk Manag · Jan 2013
Healthcare risk management challenges created by federal regulation of electronic medical records and care management.
Health information technology (HIT) continues to evolve at an ever accelerating pace. Recent federal legislation has encouraged the widespread adoption of electronic record systems in the healthcare environment.(1) The federal government recognizes that advanced electronic health record (EHR) systems with clinical decision support (CDS) functionalities have the potential to offer numerous benefits to the quality of patient care.(2.)
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J Healthc Risk Manag · Jan 2013
Automated, wireless, continuous, intelligent, and noninvasive systems for risk management and performance improvement in vital signs monitoring.
Few health professionals need to stay up-to-date on as many different problems and solutions as risk managers do. Consequently, a single solution that resolves several problems at once is really helpful for job performance, especially when it doesn't require duplicating effort in multiple areas. This article summarizes current literature about one such technology that helps risk managers address 3 of today's biggest challenges for healthcare delivery organizations: reducing costs, improving quality, and preventing harm across the continuum of clinical care; ensuring valid and reliable data for healthcare clinical and managerial decision makers; and adopting technologies that improve the medical marketplace.
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J Healthc Risk Manag · Jan 2013
Advance directives in the perioperative setting: Managing ethical and legal issues when patient rights and perceived obligations of the healthcare provider conflict.
Perhaps individual wishes are not always acknowledged or accepted when it comes to end-of-life care. This possibility, in conjunction with the experiences of healthcare risk managers, should cause concern in the healthcare risk management community. ⋯ Despite a strong focus on informed consent and advance directives, evidence suggests a number of healthcare organizations either have no policy in place regarding DNR orders during the perioperative period, or, for those organizations that do have a policy, many call for automatic suspension of the DNR order without consultation with the patient. This latter practice poses many ethical, medico-legal, and regulatory concerns, and healthcare organizations with such a policy in place should strongly consider revisiting this practice.