Journal of healthcare risk management : the journal of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management
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J Healthc Risk Manag · Jan 2014
Barriers to the implementation of checklists in the office-based procedural setting.
Patient safety is critical for the patients, providers, and risk managers in the office-based procedural setting, and the same standard of care should be maintained regardless of the healthcare environment. Checklists may improve patient safety and potentially decrease risk. This study explored utilization of checklists in the office-based setting and the potential barriers to their implementation. ⋯ Checklists are not being universally utilized in the office-based setting. There are barriers preventing their successful implementation. Risk managers may be able to improve patient safety and decrease risk by encouraging practitioners, possibly through incentives, to use customizable safety checklists.
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Despite ongoing reform, there is still significant physician concern regarding the impact of medical claims on their practices. It is important that physicians and healthcare risk management professionals have a good understanding of the outcomes of medical malpractice to participate in its restructuring as needed and to prevent potentially harmful practices. In our study, we reviewed National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) paid malpractice claim reports from September 1, 1990, through July 30, 2011, and identified the 10 most common surgery-related allegations against physicians, excluding those listed as unspecified. Data were collected on the number of claims, the cost of the claims, and physician and patient characteristics.
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J Healthc Risk Manag · Jan 2013
Advance directives in the perioperative setting: Managing ethical and legal issues when patient rights and perceived obligations of the healthcare provider conflict.
Perhaps individual wishes are not always acknowledged or accepted when it comes to end-of-life care. This possibility, in conjunction with the experiences of healthcare risk managers, should cause concern in the healthcare risk management community. ⋯ Despite a strong focus on informed consent and advance directives, evidence suggests a number of healthcare organizations either have no policy in place regarding DNR orders during the perioperative period, or, for those organizations that do have a policy, many call for automatic suspension of the DNR order without consultation with the patient. This latter practice poses many ethical, medico-legal, and regulatory concerns, and healthcare organizations with such a policy in place should strongly consider revisiting this practice.
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J Healthc Risk Manag · Jan 2013
Healthcare risk management challenges created by federal regulation of electronic medical records and care management.
Health information technology (HIT) continues to evolve at an ever accelerating pace. Recent federal legislation has encouraged the widespread adoption of electronic record systems in the healthcare environment.(1) The federal government recognizes that advanced electronic health record (EHR) systems with clinical decision support (CDS) functionalities have the potential to offer numerous benefits to the quality of patient care.(2.)