The medical institution described in this essay is an assisted housing facility for adults with mental illness disabilities. As an establishment that provides housing and support for people with various degrees of therapy and medication needs, the facility faces numerous risks associated with dangerous patient behavior, infections, and medication. This interview-based essay will overview the facility’s risk management procedures, address their effectiveness, and recommend further improvements to ensure better security.
Risk Management Strategies
The primary strategy used in the organization’s risk control programs is recognizing and minimizing the possible risks. For instance, numerous people living with mental illness admitted to the assisted living facility are often misdiagnosed or miss a vital part of the diagnosis that needs to be addressed on a medical level (Morgan et al., 2016). To avoid possible complications, the employee in charge of risk management claims that all newly admitted patients are closely monitored by the medical staff to detect any additional needs that might have been overseen. Secondly, reducing risks associated with medication errors is done via e-prescribing and barcode medication identification technology that enables nurses to electronically determine the needed medication by scanning the bar code assigned to each patient. Such reducing strategies have been put in place to ensure the minimal likelihood of medical errors.
Educational Risk Management Program
As it concerns the educational risk management program within the facility, the assisted living establishment mediates professional, legal, and ethical issues through training the workforce. The interviewed employee ensured that instances of malpractice and negligence are minimized due to the high level of technology used within the system. However, as a part of educational risk management, training for new staff is conducted to inform and reinforce the importance of following the code of conduct. All the facility’s employees are formally informed about the procedures and legal processes that might proceed in case of the occurrence of medical errors or other adverse events that endanger patients’ health. Additionally, the staff is notified about the vicarious liability and repercussions they will face in these cases, such as dismissal and suspension from work for the time of the legal investigation.
Policies for Emergency Triage Management in High‐Risk Areas of Health Care
To mediate the risks associated with drug management and security of the patients, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act are established. Firstly, as per HIPPA, it ensures the security of patients’ data and privacy, which is essential within the institution that houses and supports mentally disabled adults (Raveesh et al., 2016). The interviewee also highlighted the importance of the drug-related policy since patients require opioids and class IV drugs that need to be thoroughly controlled. The aforementioned act requires medical staff to store, manage, prescribe, and dispose of medications with high levels of caution to avoid any maltreatment or theft.
Challenges in Managing and Controlling High-Risk Health Care
Infectious Diseases and Opioids
Despite the policies and risk prevention strategies established to minimize the dangers for best patient outcomes, specific challenges for assisted housing facilities still arise when managing high-risk health care. For an institution that hosts many patients on a long-term basis and does not limit their communication, the danger of infectious diseases arises. As the interviewee noted, patients interact with each other and the medical staff, and thus limiting the spread of infections like “gastroenteritis, influenza and skin infections” is challenging (Raper et al., 2017, p. 620). Additionally, the management of class IV narcotics that are used for medication of the mentally disabled has been reported by the interviewee to be somewhat challenging due to the possibility of nursing staff misconduct and medical error.
Compliance Within the Risk Management Program
External healthcare audits and assessment of practices are regularly undertaken to maintain and ensure compliance with the risk management program and the policies established within the organization. According to the interview with the employee, a specific four-step plan of “risk assessment, remediation, auditing, response, and reporting” is occasionally enacted to detect new dangers and control the mediation of already identified ones (Raper et al., 2017, p. 615). External audit provider evaluates compliance with the laws and programs and identifies possible improvement areas.
Assessment and Recommendations
The interview has revealed that the institution has taken necessary risk reduction measures and implemented them into the risk management plan to provide safe patient outcomes. The administration has minimized the risks of medical errors and maltreatment by computerization of the medication processes. Additionally, continuous risk detection, analysis, and control have improved patient care in addressing the issues of infection spread and drug control. The institution ensures the quality of patient outcomes by externally auditing its practices that monitor, evaluate, and maintain compliance with the existing risk management program.
Conclusion
On the other hand, better educational risk processes should be implemented to improve the current state of a risk management program. Although all employees are obliged to follow a strict code of conduct and are responsible for any instances of maltreatment and negligence, education on these matters is minimal. It is provided on the initial steps of one’s career within the facility. According to Raveesh et al. (2016), “The data suggest that regularly educating medical staff on malpractice and risk reduction may play a role in decreasing malpractice costs” (p. 20). Thus, to improve the quality of education on negligence, malpractice litigation, and vicarious liability, employees should not only be informed about the repercussions and legal actions upon their admission to the assisted housing facility, but also regularly trained to reinforce this information.
References
Morgan, L., Perez, R., Frankowski, A., Nemec, M., & Bennett, C. (2016). Mental illness in assisted living: Challenges for quality of life and care. Journal of Housing for The Elderly, 30(2), 185-198.
Raper, S., Rose, D., Nepps, M., & Drebin, J. (2017). Taking the initiative: Risk-reduction strategies and decreased malpractice costs. Journal of The American College of Surgeons, 225(5), 612-621.
Raveesh, B., Nayak, R., & Kumbar, S. (2016). Preventing medico-legal issues in clinical practice. Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, 19(5), 15-25.