Ensuring quality, affordable healthcare for each of your patients is a matter of effectively managing many moving parts, any one of which could have potentially disastrous consequences for the success of your operation. Perhaps the most tenuous component, however, is the risk of a medical malpractice lawsuit brought by an individual that has been treated at your facility. In order to reduce or eliminate the risk of a malpractice suit, it’s important to pay attention to a few fundamentals that will not only protect your facility from liability, but also have the potential to increase the quality of care you provide to your patients.
Stay Informed
Laws regarding the access to and practice of healthcare change frequently. As ignorance is not a viable defense in a medical malpractice suit, it’s important to remain up-to-date on any changes that happen in legislation, and how that legislation will affect your facility. One way to expedite this process is to involve the services of a medical malpractice attorney, who can help you navigate new policies and make the necessary changes to minimize your risk. Getting an attorney from a firm like Obradovich Law involved at this stage is much preferable to the alternative of being prosecuted by a medical malpractice attorney in court for not doing something you didn’t know you were supposed to be doing in the first place.
Communicate
It’s important to have quality communication across all channels at your facility, thus ensuring a consistent understanding of what needs to be done to provide the highest quality of care. Again, changes can happen quickly in the industry, and unless you have an effective way to communicate these changes to each person across your organization, you run the risk of the one person who didn’t find out being the one who causes a devastating problem. Help department heads take ownership in educating their subordinates on new changes as well as the new practices that are being implemented to keep the department compliant to these new changes.
Leave a Paper Trail
In business, especially in healthcare, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen. Whether it’s gaining informed consent from a patient prior to a procedure, or signing-in visitors to ensure patient safety, if logs and releases are not kept, your organization has no proof that these actions were ever taken. That leaves your organization extremely vulnerable to litigation should even the slightest problem occur. Go over and above what is required so that each point in the process of patient care is well-documented, so that if a case is brought against you, you’ll have the proof you need to be successful.
Put Others First
A facility that shows that it truly cares for those it treats is one that finds itself at a lower risk for a medical malpractice suit. Everything from detailed communication during critical aspects of various procedures to quality follow-up communication ensures that a patient feels heard, providing assurance that their care is of the highest-quality. Of course, backing up words with actions is vitally important, but just creating that warm and close-knit relationship with patients and their families will go a long way to reduce the inherent suspicion individuals often have about any healthcare facility.
Take Your Time
Whether it’s a doctor taking a few extra minutes to familiarize themselves with a patient’s chart, or a nurse taking a few extra moments to empathize with a new admit’s concerns, taking your time with patients not only helps them feel heard and cared for, but also helps prevent mistakes. In the relentless hours kept by your operation, nothing but the best attention-to-detail will prevent simple mistakes from happening, mistakes which could turn into major catastrophes. If everyone involved in a patient’s care is well-informed about their situation, the overall quality of care will increase, the patient will be able to relax, and time will ultimately be saved as everything will be done correctly the very first time.
Take a Step Back
Though many aspects of the insurance industry don’t necessarily encourage a measured pace in any healthcare facility, ensuring that your particular facility has an occasional chance to step back and evaluate itself is key to the success of the initiatives mentioned above. Without honest self-evaluation, major oversights will be easy to miss, which could ultimately lead to major problems for everyone involved. Truly understanding why you exist and getting feedback from employees and patients will go a long way in setting your facility up for long-term success.
