In any occupational field, risk management refers to liability, proactively and reactively. Risk management, when it comes to health care, honors the safety of patients, quality assurance and patients’ rights. The potential for risk infuses all aspects of health care, which includes medical errors, the keeping of electronic records, and provider facilities along with facility management.
The Purpose of Risk Management in Long Term Care The purpose of risk management, over all, is to boost patients’ safety, defend against accidents, make sure companies are compliance with law, and flee legal exposure, which usually ends as a loss or litigation. Health Care Organizations must address the actual facility, equipment, staff, visitors and patients, which include not only families of patients, but also, attending physicians in private practice, whose patients are being treated as well. Risk management in Long Term Care, requires a multi tasking effort.
The physician’s responsibility is very important for providing and upholding successful, proficient, and safe health care. Long term care physicians have to be not only medically competent, but they must also be aware of different ways to promote optimal health care, decrease any risks to patients, and prevent any malpractice suits. Steps to take to identify and manage risks There are many mechanisms for identifying risks in long term care, as well as other corporations.
They are as follows: * Customer complaints Satisfaction surveys * Accreditation survey reports * Regulatory reports * State licensure surveys * Internal audits * Incidents report * Infection control data * Performance improvement data * Staff interview, meetings or discussions Once the risks a plan have been identified and measured, a plan is designed and implemented to avoid risks and decrease damage and loss if any. The risk management program will put their heads together and come up with this to diminish the problem and make sure it never happens again.
Another way to manage and prevent risks is by making sure all medical personnel that have direct contact with patients should be properly trained and appropriately licensed. This includes doctors, nurses, technicians, orderlies, clerks etc. All staff which includes medical and non-medical must be fully knowledgeable of as well adequately trained regarding privacy matters, and they must also obey proper protocols for handling all points of patients’ care. Possible risk that may be faced in long term care:
* Fall related injuries are very common in long term care facilities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one in three people age 65 years and older falls each year. As many as 30% of those who fall suffer injuries severe enough to reduce mobility and increase the risk of premature death. (Hyatt, L. 2003) Falls are very costly. Absolute costs justify expenses as rehabilitation, physcican and other professional services medical prescriptions, nursing home care and hospital and equipment. The federal government reports that in 1994, direct costs of fall injuries for people 65 years or older were $20. 2 billion.
By 2020, these same costs are expected to increase by more than 150% to nearly $33 billion (Kehinde J. 2009) * Infections that are transmitted in long-term care facilities can be very common. When infections occur, they can be devastating to the patient as well as their families, and staff. Long-term care facilities are required to have very comprising infection control measures set in place to protect residents as well as the staff members (E. C. 2008). * Long Term Care facilities have to have an official operational plan in place to handle emergencies and disasters before they actually occur.
Industrial risks include computer failures and data that has been lost, contaminated spills, electrical fires and explosions. Industrial problems often result from human error. For example, if someone presses the wrong switch or simply forget the right one to press, and the lights go out not only in your establishment, but in the surrounding communities as well. Or if someone stumble over a electrical cord and disables the whole system and all access to the electronic files are lost, and there is a possible but strong chance that they will not be recovered.
Types of education, certification, and training needed to help mitigate risks: Training Requirements: The state Department of Health, which is also known as DOH, regulates the licensure and certification of physicians, nurses, nursing assistants, and other medical professionals. Long-term care workers are not currently required to be registered, but are required to complete basic training and continuing education requirements monitored by the state Department of Social and Health Services, which is also known as DSHS (Grachek, M. 002).
These requirements include 34 hours of training completed within the first 120 days of employment, as well as five hours of orientation before they begin providing care. Training for individual providers is done by a variety of contractors, and for other caregivers that is normally given at their current place of employment. Competency testing is also required. Long-term care workers must complete the 75 hours of training required for certification within 120 days of being hired.
As under current law, before workers can provide any care, they must complete five hours of basic safety training including safety precautions, emergency procedures, and infection control. The last 70 hours include core competencies such as skin and body care, food preparation, fall prevention, and population specific diseases such as dementia and other mental health topics applicable to the clients they may be serving (Merritt, P. 2007) Long-Term Care Worker Certification & Continuing Education: Long-term care workers must be certified as home care aides within 150 days from the date of hire.
Certification as a home care aide requires completion of the training requirements as I have described above, as well as a successful completion of an exam which includes a demonstration of skills and written or oral knowledge. The Department of Health will develop the certification exam in discussion with consumer and worker representatives. Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, Medicare-certified home health aides, certain special education professionals, are exempt from certification.
A home care aide must complete 12 hours of continuing education per year to maintain certification every year, once a year (Grachek, M. 2002). By familiarizing yourself with risk management, will help operation a Long Term Care facility smoothly. Once you are familiarized with the possible risk that may affect your business, you must implement ways to not only prevent them from happening, but in the case that it does, making sure it doesn’t happen again.