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If a major disaster struck your community, how many of your employees would show up for work?
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Five years after the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act became law, hospitals have made a dramatic shift to safety devices, bringing about a decline of one-third to one-half in the rate of needlesticks among health care workers.
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Employee health professionals are beginning to retire, leaving opportunities for other nurses to move into the field and raising the value of the more seasoned, experienced practitioners.
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A large hospital system has seen a 45% reduction in new obstetrical claims after implementing a series of steps that focus on the high-risk factors most likely to contribute to birth injuries, and similar drops were seen in categories such as mechanical injuries and birth trauma.
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Vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) was tied to a number of obstetrics claims in the Hospital Corp. of America (HCA) system, and inexperience in this procedure may have contributed to the problem.
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Sexual misconduct or harassment of patients in health care can be a major liability risk and probably happens more than you think, say a risk manager and attorney who are experienced in dealing with such issues.
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Sexual boundary violations often are not overtly "wrong" until you put all the pieces together and see that the health care professional is no longer maintaining a professional distance from the patient.
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Allegations of sexual misconduct must be taken seriously, and risk managers should have steps in place to both prevent them and respond appropriately.
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Nearly 9% of hospitals have no patient safety systems plan, according to recent research suggesting that risk managers need to reevaluate how they are striving to meet the Institute of Medicine safety goals.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued a new Sentinel Event Alert that urges special attention to the accuracy of medications given to patients as they transition from one care setting to another, or one practitioner to another.
