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Youve probably got a defense attorney or two giving you advice on how to avoid liability in slip-and-fall cases, but wouldnt it be great to hear from the other side? Imagine if a plaintiffs attorney explained, Heres how to win when my client sues you. Healthcare Risk Management found a plaintiffs lawyer willing to give you that view from the other side, with some tips about how you can best avoid writing his client a big check.
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Its probably not uncommon for patients to arrive at your facility with their own health care equipment, such as a home dialysis unit or insulin pump, not to mention personal items such as curling irons, computers, and hair dryers. Do you have a policy in place to make sure those items are safe? If you dont, you might be risking significant liability if those items end up injuring anyone.
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Its 3 a.m., and you get a call from the emergency department. The staff is in a heated dispute with a local police officer whos demanding information about a patient who assaulted another while waiting to be transferred to inpatient care. Your staff is worried about violating patient privacy. The officer is complaining loudly that the hospital is obstructing a criminal investigation. Whats a risk manager to do?
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Consider this true example, taken from the December 2003 issue of ECRIs Health Devices, of how a fire can occur during surgery.
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Living wills dont work and waste your time when you promote them to patients, according to researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
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The parents of a newborn baby retained a home health agency to provide in-home child care. The agency failed to follow its screening procedures when selecting the nurses aide and overlooked her history of drug abuse and theft. This case presents a classic illustration of why it is absolutely imperative that an organization follow the rules, especially when it was the organization itself that wrote the rules, states Ellen Barton, JD, CPCU, a risk management consultant in Phoenix, MD.
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Several perennial worries of risk managers are under consideration by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations as new National Patient Safety Goals for 2005, and experts in two of the hottest topics harm from patient falls and the risk of surgical fires say you should assess your efforts in these areas now.
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Here are the proposed 2005 National Patient Safety Goals for hospitals. The goals differ somewhat from one health care setting to another.
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Expectations are key to having a good working relationship with legal counsel, says Pamela L. Popp, MA, JD, FASHRM, CPHRM, vice president for health care practice with McQueary Henry in Dallas, which provides insurance products and risk management services.
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Continuing the effort to eliminate what it calls an entirely preventable class of error, the Joint Commission has updated its frequently asked questions on how to avoid performing a procedure on the wrong body part, wrong person, or the wrong procedure on the right patient.
