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Impaired healthcare workers (HCWs) can pose a serious threat to patient safety, but they must be handled carefully and with respect to their own health conditions. Risk managers must ensure their organizations are prepared to protect patient safety while also working to help impaired HCWs receive treatment and return to work.
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For decades, risk managers have tried to improve safety by encouraging patients and family members to speak up when they are concerned about care or suspect something might be wrong. Some progress has been made, but recent data suggest one group remains reluctant to speak up: the parents of pediatric patients.
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Team training — on communication skills, monitoring patients, and sharing information while the patient still is in the ED — can ensure the correct tests are ordered and acted on.
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While it may be hard to understand why a person at higher risk for contracting the virus might take issue with this requirement, the idea of mandating the vaccine as a condition of employment is simply too strong a push for some. However, a coalition of healthcare organizations is calling on all medical facilities to mandate the vaccines.
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Groups call for action as cases and hospitalizations surge again.
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This case demonstrates both procedural and substantive defenses for physicians and care providers. For the procedural side, the reversal by the appellate court reveals defendants in malpractice cases need not always wait for a jury to determine the care provider did not act negligently.
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In this case, the physician’s liability was a case of failure to diagnose, a particularly concerning result given the physician’s treatment of the patient over the course of more than four years. A failure to diagnose, or a delayed diagnosis, can cause significant injuries or dramatically worsen the patient’s condition.
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Virginia Mason Franciscan Health — which operates 11 hospitals and more than 300 care sites in the Puget Sound region of Washington — is reporting success with addressing hospital quality and safety measures, the result of bringing together two organizations with a strong history of patient care.
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Critical care often is overlooked in disaster planning. Risk managers should ensure this component is fully included. Critical care must ramp up quickly in a disaster, the same as the emergency department.
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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance includes two important exceptions. Employers remain limited by the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Title VII requires employers to provide exemptions from any vaccine requirement to employees with sincerely held religious beliefs preventing them from taking the vaccine. Further, the ADA requires employers to provide exemptions from any vaccine requirement to employees with a disability that prevents them from taking the vaccine.
