Consider these tips from ethics, compliance officer
These tips on corporate compliance are from Mary Ann Bowman Beil, MS, corporate ethics and compliance officer with Memorial Health in Savannah, GA:
• Pull shift reports and exit interviews for review. "They can be the best source of the real problems at your facility," she says. "These are the problems that people know are threatening patients, but they are frustrated by what to do about it." A good example would be staffing shortages that threaten patient safety. Beil reported feeling a chill when she read a shift report in which a frustrated nurse complained of short staffing and added, "Don’t say I didn’t tell you Rome was burning."
• Tell physicians not to fear the hotline. Physicians often fear that the compliance hotline will be used to report allegations of malpractice and other problems involving them, but Beil says that has not been the case at her institution. In the first year of the hotline’s availability, physicians used it to report problems themselves seven times more often than they were reported on the hotline by others.
• Appoint a medical director of compliance. This should be a physician who is in charge of compliance issues involving physicians. He or she will act as a liaison to the medical staff, in addition to dealing directly with some medical issues involving compliance. "A medical director of compliance greatly facilitates taking issues to the medical staff, who otherwise can see you as unqualified to talk to them about compliance issues," she says.
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