Compliance
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Opioid-Related Claims Show Need for Good Processes
The opioid crisis continues to create increased liability risks for healthcare providers, who must contend with more scrutiny over prescribing and management practices. A review of closed claims indicates hospitals and physicians can improve the way they follow guidelines and processes designed to reduce the risk.
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10 Things Never to Say to a Patient or Family Member
There are certain things nurses and physicians should never say to a patient or family member because they can lead to an increased risk of liability and dissatisfaction. Risk managers should educate clinicians about these comments to avoid.
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Paradigm Shift Needed on Healthcare Violence
Workplace violence in healthcare occurs at rates more than four times higher than in other industries. Patients and family are under stress, and often take it out on the physicians, nurses, and other employees.
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Patient Watch: Alternatives to Using Nurses and Security Officers
Hospitals often struggle with the need to provide close watch over a potentially dangerous patient without relying on skilled nurses or security officers who are needed elsewhere. Some hospitals find that a patient watch program is the right solution.
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Appellate Court Orders Retrial Due to Physician’s Improper Testimony
This case raises an interesting legal issue that may be important and applicable to medical care providers’ defense of medical malpractice actions. Since litigation often arises years after the underlying services are provided, the care providers may no longer remember specific details for one patient who received services years ago. Under specific circumstances, courts permit individuals to testify about their courses of conduct when such courses rise to the level of “habit.”
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Failure to Treat High Blood Pressure Results in Kidney Failure, $31 Million Verdict
A critical lesson from this case focuses on the legal concept of comparative negligence, which concerns whether a patient’s own negligent conduct played a role in causing or worsening his or her injury.
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Cameras Help Monitor Compliance, Reduce Patient Falls
A health system based in Florida has found using cameras can improve compliance with quality and safety efforts, especially when the camera includes a speaker for communicating with people.
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Program Trains Administrative Staff to Prevent Falls
A health plan in California is providing fall prevention training to medical office staff. Nonclinical staff often are overlooked in fall prevention efforts.
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Google/Ascension Partnership Shows HIPAA Gray Areas
The Office for Civil Rights is investigating a huge data-sharing project between Google and Ascension, one of the country’s largest nonprofit health systems, in a case that analysts say highlights the uncertainties of exactly what is and is not allowed under HIPAA.
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Nurses Require Their Own Education on Malpractice Prevention
Nurses often are undereducated on malpractice prevention and risk management because efforts focus more on physicians. Education focused on nursing concerns can help reduce the risk for themselves and their employers.