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A monthly update of risk management news, issues and items of interest
New National Patient Safety Goals Take Effect
Effective January 1, 2003, accredited healthcare organizations in the United States are required to take specific actions to prevent medical mistakes. The actions are set forth in new National Patient Safety Goals developed by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).
The actions are intended to help avoid confusion in identifying patients, miscommunication among caregivers, wrong-site surgery, unsafe use of infusion pumps, medication mix-ups and problems with equipment alarm systems. “The know-how to prevent these errors exists,” says JCAHO President Dennis S. O’Leary MD. “We now need to focus on making sure that healthcare organizations are actually taking these preventive steps.”
The National Patient Safety Goals encompass 11 required actions, including the following:
- Make sure beforehand that medicines are given to the right patient. Using a room number to identify a patient is not sufficient.
- Read back medical orders given over the phone. This reduces the likelihood of miscommunications or misunderstandings.
- Standardize abbreviations or symbols that are used in providing care. For example, when the letter “u” is handwritten to indicate units, it can often look like a zero and can lead to incorrect medication dosages.
More information on the actions is available online at www.jcaho.org.
Survey: Latinos Cite Communication Problems With Providers
Nearly 30% of Latinos say they have had a problem communicating with healthcare providers, and 12% say this has been a major problem, according to a survey conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey also indicates that almost 20% of Latinos say they have had difficulty obtaining care because of their race or ethnic background. The complete survey is available online at www.kff.org.
The communication gap between physicians and non-English-speaking patients can be harmful to both. Physicians may be forced to use unnecessarily invasive methods with non-English-speaking patients because the patients cannot explain their symptoms. Also, physicians may face malpractice action due to incorrect or missed diagnoses.
Steps physicians can take to better serve patients with limited English-speaking skills include the following:
- Take advantage of state and federal funds to pay for interpreter services and translated printed materials.
- Use telephone translation services. One such service is Language Line Services, available at 800/752-6096, which charges $4.50 per minute of translation.
- Hire bilingual employees. They should be certified for medical proficiency through an established training program.
For more information on this topic, see the April 2001 issue of Safe Practice.
Guides for HIPAA Requirements Updated
The California HealthCare Foundation has updated three guides released last year to help the California healthcare industry meet requirements of the Federal Health Privacy Rule mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
The guides explain the relationship between the federal privacy rule and state patient privacy laws, and provide recommendations for compliance with both. The guides address revisions that the Department of Health and Human Services made to the privacy rule, which was finalized in August 2002.
The privacy rule, which applies to electronic but not paper medical records, allows providers to share records for the purposes of treatment and other healthcare operations. Under the regulation, although providers must obtain consent from patients before they can disclose medical records in nonroutine cases, they are not required to obtain written consent; providers only have to inform patients of their new rights and make a “good-faith effort” to obtain written acknowledgment that patients have received the information.
The updated guides are available online at www.chcf.org.
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