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| Data reveals that communication failures and service lapses cause an increase in both frequency and severity of malpractice claims. By developing and maintaining a five-star service culture which focuses on reducing risk in these specific areas, liability risk can be reduced and better health outcomes for patients can be promoted. The success of a practice can be enhanced if the healthcare organization takes steps toward becoming both the employer and provider of choice. |
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| Five-Star Service Guidebooks |
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| 1. Moving to a Five-Star Practice: A Practical Guide for Physicians Program |
| This series provides a step-by-step guide for physician practices which will enable them to use the practical guidance to promote, implement, maintain, and reinforce a five-star service culture in physician practices which transcends traditional service. |
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| Videos |
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| 1. Operating Room Surgical Fire Training |
| Now more than ever, OR fire safety is a priority in organizations across the country. It's no surprise, with an average of 2 surgical fires happening per week nationally, organizations are rallying to make OR fires a thing of the past. Make OR safety a high priority in your facility. Don't risk, citations from JCAHO, CMS, and most importantly, the safety of your patients. |
| 2. Wrong-Site Surgery Staff Training |
| Wrong-site surgery is the third-leading type of sentinel event in accredited organizations, according to the JCAHO. At the completion of this educational activity, which includes a video-more than 20 minutes in length-and accompanying 25-pack of handbooks, you'll be able to: define the national requirements for preventing incidents of wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure surgery; justify why taking a time out prior to surgery can prevent incidents of wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure surgery; describe how to properly perform the site-marking process; explain how clear communication is a critical issue to prevent incidents of wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure surgery; and, state the ways to avoid ambiguous site markings. |
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| 3. The Anatomy of a Lawsuit video |
| This video provides a step-by-step in-depth guide to help physicians, other healthcare providers, and any individual working with, for, or in the healthcare industry to understand the basic stages of a lawsuit. Truly understanding the litigation process reveals the importance of healthcare providers partnering with their loss control team and the importance of risk management techniques and tools as well as partnering with their legal team to provide the most effective defense should one be involved in professional liability litigation. The video dissects a lawsuit and provides vignettes related to the initial stages of a lawsuit, discovery (written and oral), preparation, and each stage of the trial process from pre-trial issues through the trial itself as well as post-trial issues. |
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| Books |
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| 1. The Satisfied Patient: A Guide to Preventing Malpractice Claims by Providing Excellent Customer Service, written by James W. Saxton, Esquire |
| A patient who leaves your facility feeling satisfied with the care that he or she received is less likely to sue if an adverse outcome occurs. Conversely, a patient who leaves unsatisfied is more likely to sue. And once a patient brings a lawsuit, you can spend years tied up in a legal battle that will sap your time, energy, and financial resources. Avoid these problems by ensuring that all patients leave your facility feeling satisfied. Use this practical and affordable 120-page book to learn how incorporating “five-star” customer service into caregiving will keep your patients happy and reduce your risk of lawsuits and patient complaints. The book also describes a typical deposition and malpractice trial to illustrate how you can strengthen your defense on the back end, should you ever get called to court. |
| 2. Defensive Documentation for Long-Term Care |
| Improper documentation in the medical record has landed plenty of facilities in hot water when used as evidence in a lawsuit. Defensive Documentation for Long-Term Care: Strategies for Creating a More Lawsuit-Proof Resident Record can show you how to protect your facility by making sure your medical records documentation is right on target. |
| 3. Drug Diversion in Health Care: A Guide To Identification and PreventionDrug theft—or drug diversion—now ranks among the top concerns of health care risk managers, pharmacists, security officers, and human resources professionals, and continues to be a growing problem in the health care industry. Drug Diversion in Health Care: A Guide to Identification and Prevention is the only hands-on book that provides a practical, effective approach to dealing with drug theft in your facility. |
| 4. Long-Term Care Risk Management: Pressure Ulcers |
| Pressure Ulcers: A Prevention, Assessment, and Treatment Training Guide is a complete facility-wide solution to your pressure ulcer concerns. You'll receive a comprehensive program to reduce the risk of pressure ulcers and pressure ulcer-related litigation. And, with the increased surveyor scrutiny following CMS' new guidelines, pressure ulcers are a concern no facility can ignore. |
| 5. Long-Term Care Risk Management: Resident Falls |
| With as many as 75% percent of nursing home residents falling each year, falls are a concern no long-term care facility can afford to ignore. Falls directly impact residents' quality of life, and a fall-related lawsuit could cripple a facility. Until now, fall risk management-which includes assessment, prevention, and response—has not been available in a comprehensive program. Resident Falls: A Guide to Prevention, Assessment, and Response, a manual and CD-ROM set, is the ONLY comprehensive fall-related training and risk management program for long-term care providers. |
| 6. Managing Documentation Risk: Tools for Nurse Managers |
| With as many as 75% percent of nursing home residents falling each year, falls are a concern no long-term care facility can afford to ignore. Falls directly impact residents' quality of life, and a fall-related lawsuit could cripple a facility. Until now, fall risk management-which includes assessment, prevention, and response—has not been available in a comprehensive program. Resident Falls: A Guide to Prevention, Assessment, and Response, a manual and CD-ROM set, is the ONLY comprehensive fall-related training and risk management program for long-term care providers. |
| 7. Risk Management Through Exceptional Customer Service |
| Risk Management through Exceptional Customer Service: A complete training program can help you avoid the mess of claims and lawsuits by ensuring that all residents and their families receive excellent customer service. With this program, the leadership of nursing homes and assisted living facilities will understand the importance of customer service, reduce the risk of litigation and enhance their facility's reputation, build positive working relationships with residents and families, learn the eight-step plan to deal with difficult family members, train staff to provide top-notch customer service and know the ways to measure customer satisfaction. |
| 8. Risk Management for Practicing Physicians |
| Earn up to 5.5 hours of Category I continuing medical education (CME) credits toward the AMA Physician's Recognition Award with this monograph. Co-written by a practicing physician and an attorney, this 75-page monograph includes chapters on: Providing care in today's malpractice environment; Doctor-patient relationship liability; Managing diagnosis-related liability; Managing high risk communication; Managing the dangers of drug therapy; and, Nonmedical liability risks. |
| 9. The Top 15 Policies and Procedures to Reduce Liability for Physician Practices |
| Stay on top of the liability game with 15 top policies for 5 top risk areas The Top 15 Policies and Procedures to Reduce Liability for Physician Practices—a new book and CD-ROM set from HCPro—focuses on the top five areas of liability risk: Quality improvement, customer service, and patient satisfaction; Patient rights and responsibilities; Documentation; Patient safety; and, Legal issues. |
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| Audioconferences |
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| 1. Defensive Documentation for Long-term Care (11/30/04) |
| Defensive Documentation for Long-Term Care: Steps to Avoid Litigation and Prevent Documentation Errors will explain how to protect your facility on all fronts by making sure your medical records documentation is right on target. You'll learn the ins and outs of good documentation from experts in long-term care and the law. |
| 2. How to Detect and Correct Security Risks at Your Hospital (2/27/03) |
| There's never been a more crucial time to establish or enhance the security measures in your hospital. And if you're like many of your peers, you'll agree that the biggest challenge you face is how to address the varying safety and security needs of each department within your facility, from the emergency room and pharmacy, to maternal/newborn units and even the business office. During this program, you will learn: The primary elements of a successful security assessment; How to address the security needs of the following specific topics, Infant abductions, Workplace violence/weapons, Access control in the event of a decontamination emergency, VIPs--Patients in need of special security, Access control and ID badges--how to set up an effective and workable system; and, Regulatory and Accreditation concerns. |
| 3. Informed Consent: How to Improve Patient Satisfaction and Reduce Hospital Risk (7/31/03) |
| Join us for a timely audioconference Informed Consent: How to Improve Patient Satisfaction and Reduce Hospital Risk. You'll hear about the most contemporary mechanisms for obtaining informed consent and how hospitals and clinical trial facilities can make informed consent a mutually informed decision process between provider and patient. Reduce risks in your organization by creating an informed consent process that increases patient safety and satisfaction. |
| 4. Nurse Liability Strategies to Greatly Reduce Personal Risk (3/17/04) |
| Nurse managers and nurses need to understand what they are liable for when their nursing care is implicated in these cases. The speakers help you identify your risks through case studies, involving common allegations made against nurses. Participants will also learn what it's like to be deposed in a case, and what a plaintiff's attorney may be looking for to prove negligence occurred. |
| 5. Patient Falls and Medication (3/29/05) |
| During this audioconference our speakers will present comprehensive strategies, real-life examples, and field-tested tips you can implement easily to assess and reduce each patient's risk for falling. By the end of the program you will be able to: Explain the significance of falls/fall prevention and the 2005 National Patient Safety Goal; Indicate who are high-risk patients for falls; Explain fall risk assessments (its components) and recognize pharmacist roles in fall risk reduction; Illustrate the relationship of medications to fall risk; Implement interventions (e.g. reducing doses, discontinuing medications) to improve safety using available tools; Develop a simple fall risk assessment program; and, Identify staff involved in evaluating risk, including pharmacists and nursing staff. |
| 6. Patient Falls Risk Assessment and Prevention (10/14/04) |
| As you know all too well, patient falls are common in hospitals. They result in a longer stay and the loss of a lot of money. And through it's 2005 National Patient Safety Goals, the JCAHO will scrutinize how you are working to reduce the risk of patient harm resulting from falls. Get this audioconference on tape and we'll help you comply with this new goal, keep patients safe, and keep extra costs from patient falls to a minimum. |
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| Handbooks |
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| 1. Long-term Care Risk Management: Pressure Ulcers Handbooks |
| This informative 16-page handbook—which can be used along with the CD-ROM and inservice program—quickly and easily outlines: Pressure ulcer prevention — how risk factors such as support surfaces, moisture, and nutrition contribute to the development of pressure ulcers; Pressure ulcer development — a review of skin anatomy, the four stages of pressure ulcers, healing processes and wound healing, and discussion of Minimum Data Set (MDS) requirements; Wound evaluation — types of tissue, wound edges, wound photography, measuring pressure ulcers, and more! |
| 2. Nursing Documentation: Reduce Your Risk of Liability |
| Managing Documentation Risk: Tools for Nurse Managers is a comprehensive reference tool all nurses will use to improve nursing documentation and decrease the likelihood of nursing liability related to incomplete or inaccurate documentation. It includes the 160-page book Managing Documentation Risk: A Guide for Nurse Managers, as well as 25 copies of Nursing Documentation: Reduce Your Risk of Liability, a 32-page training handbook specifically for staff nurses. |
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| Reports |
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| 1. Malpractice and Liability Issues: Protect Your Practice and Personal Assets |
| The malpractice insurance "crisis" hit again recently, affecting practices in many states brutally hard and threatening financial difficulties in most others as well. Regardless of your outlook in the shorter term premium-pricing crunch, there really are things you can do to protect both the practice and its physician(s). Protecting the practice and the individual is far more than a subject only for the high-income practice and the wealthy doctor. It behooves you to understand what you can do. |
| 2. The Malpractice Mess |
| HCPro knows that malpractice is reshaping the way you practice medicine. This special report includes updates on the national malpractice crisis as well as reforms specific to your state. After you read The Malpractice Mess: An analysis of the crisis, coverage alternatives, and long- and short-term solutions, you will be armed with risk-management strategies, steps for lobbying lawmakers, and ways to effectively respond if you are named in a malpractice lawsuit. |
| 3. Managing Documentation Risks: Tools for Nurse Managers |
| Managing Documentation Risk: Tools for Nurse Managers is a comprehensive reference tool all nurses will use to improve nursing documentation and decrease the likelihood of nursing liability related to incomplete or inaccurate documentation. It includes the 160-page book Managing Documentation Risk: A Guide for Nurse Managers, as well as 25 copies of Nursing Documentation: Reduce Your Risk of Liability, a 32-page training handbook specifically for staff nurses. |
| 4. Preventing Medical Errors in the ED |
| Our special report Preventing Medical Errors in the Emergency Department is a handy training guide to help your staff on how to reduce errors. Topics covered in this special report, include the following: Reduce critical wait times by triaging properly; Skirt language barriers; Control medications; Watch yourself; and, Continuous improvement. |
