Risk Management Memo

Patient safety is number one in hospitals. Every staff member that comes into contact with a patient should always have the question, “Will the patient be safe?” in the back of

The Joint Commission focuses on certain goals each year. For patient safety and positive outcomes, hospitals are required to follow certain standards. National Patient Safety Goals were established in 2002 to help identify areas of concern with patient safety. This group is made up by a panel of experts including nurses, doctors, pharmacists and many other healthcare professionals. They advise the Joint Commission on how to address these different patient safety issues. Two goals to be discussed are improving the accuracy of patient identification and medication safety. To improve patient

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis between for-profit hospitals and not-for-profit hospital. It will discuss the characteristics of each as well as factors affecting the operations of both systems. Additionally, it discusses potential areas of improvement and some of the challenges associated with each relative to finance and operations.

Hospitals also attempt to provide every available service to their patients, some say in an attempt to do everything they can as a medical professional, others as a way to squeeze every last penny from a sick individual and even others a means to ensure patients do not sue the hospital for not carrying out their duties to the fullest. The major problem with hospitals and how they relate to healthcare however is the fact that your local hospital basically runs a monopoly system. In an emergency an American does not have the luxury to shop around the area hospitals looking for the best price they can, they are rushed to the nearest emergency room and are subject to the costs of care given. Americans have no say on the price of procedures, operations and medicines because they cannot use a market system to hold hospitals accountable for their prices. Furthermore, hospitals like any other business may merge to consolidate their power and financial influence. For example, the 1993 merger between two eminent Harvard-affiliated hospitals, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital created a city wide influence on healthcare costs. When the two most prestigious hospitals in the state pooled their resources and merged, insurers and by extension their patients, had incredibly fewer options inside the city to take their money to. This new massive healthcare corporation, Partners HealthCare, could

In other words, ever since the Affordable Care Act was passed, millions of Americans have insurance. This can be worrisome to non-profit hospitals due to the large number of patients. For example, there are far more patients than there are physicians, which causes the quality of care for these patients to diminish. Physicians cannot keep up with the amount of patients they need to see as well as give every patient 100% of their attention it is simply impossible. Therefore, hospitals may start to implement a policy where only certain insurances can be seen at the hospitals, excluding emergency situations of course, while others have to either see there primary doctors or specialists. In other words, physicians are discharging patients too early, which cause a large amount of them to be readmission. Therefore, this is costing the hospital millions of dollars as well as affecting the patients’ overall health. If there was a stricter policy on who can and cannot go to the hospital than patients may start to receive better care and non-profit hospitals can focus on their main mission and that is to treat the people of the community with a high and effective quality of

All these priorities focus on the national patients safety goal as the most important in patient management and treatment, and guide the hospitals toward appropriate policies and protocols to follow and to minimize any possible mistakes or patients harm. I choose the priority focus area of Communication to discuss the current compliance status of our organization concentrating on the standards, which did not meet the Joint

Safety is a small measure that can make a big impact on a patient in the clinical setting. In some cases, it can even cost patients their lives. According to the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, safety is defined as a tool to minimize risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance (Barnsteiner, 2011). Safety problems can range from the nurse not knowing how to work certain equipment, or the nurse recording values wrong because he or she is distracted. Either way, these safety issues impact the clinical setting in a negative way. In order to have a functional, safe clinical environment, time and money must be spent to keep the hospital in working order and the nurses in the correct mindset.

It has come to the attention of the management team here at All Safe Insurance Company that much of the individuals employed here are taking advantage of the company by reporting more hours worked than they have actually put in. We have come to find out that “some people” have been having others clock in and out for them or they are just not bothering to clock out at all when going to lunch or to run personal errands. This is COMPLETELY UNACCECTABLE and must come to a halt IMMEDIATELY. In order to insure this unacceptable behavior does in fact come to a halt, the management team here at All Safe Insurance Company has created a policy for clocking in and clocking out. May you please review the policy included in this memo? All individuals

2012 Joint Commission Patient Safety Goals. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2014, from Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center: www.lovell.fhcc.va.gov/about/2012PatientSafetyGoals.pdf

Hospitals generally compete with each other. In such an atmosphere of fierce competition, “managers must assess the ability of their organizations to influence the prices paid for the services offered.” (Gapenski, 2008, p.194). And because most services provided in such marketplace are similar in nature, “the economic theory suggest that prices will be set forth by local supply and demand conditions. Thus, the actions of a single participant, whether the participant is a provider or a payer, cannot influence the prices set in the marketplace.” (Gapenski, 2008, p.194). In such a competitive market, the prices of services are constrained and as such, providers are said to be price takers. Moreover, some healthcare payers

There are many different forms of competition among health care organizations. Some of them are the prices of services, different co-pays someone will have to pay out of pocket, lower premiums, they have to be competitive in the quality of the service in which they perform daily. The health care competition is being advertised every day. The competitive nature of business cause them to reach out to the community. The health care industry has to fight for the approval of the community, the government, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies and of course the stake holders as well as future investors.

Emergency department overcrowding is a common problem that is affecting many of the hospitals throughout the world. Patient overcrowding directly effects the flow of patient care within the St Charles Health system. Patients are sometimes required to wait hours before even being seen by a physician.

Hospitals also compete for physicians by offering more highly trained supportive staff and/or better equipment. Hospitals are more likely to compete for patients by providing more services, better amenities, or discounted prices. There is a strong competition for cutting edge technology and medical talent locally and globally. Hospitals also have to compete for inclusion in insurer’s provider networks. Insurance plans compete for cost to payers, quality of provider networks, credentialing screening, and quality assessment procedures.

The increase in competitive pressure has led to mergers among all types of providers in the healthcare industry; including hospitals, HMOs, nursing homes, and diagnostic laboratories. Recently, the number of mergers in the hospital sector has been extraordinarily high. Hospitals are under intense pressure to lower costs, improve care, and reduce the number of lost patients. More and more surgeries are performing in clinics and doctor's offices, so patients do not need to spend the night in the hospital. The structure of pricing in hospitals suggest that strategic effects of merger will unveil itself in the form of quality rather than price effects. If prices for treating many patients are fixed, hospitals may attempt to lower the quality of

About 50 million Americans do not have health insurance and, the emergency department seems to be the only way to get adequate health care. Doctors there see all patients who arrive, regardless of their health insurance status (Lobachova L, Brown DF, Sinclair J, Chang Y, Thielker KZ, Nagurney JT. 2014). The quantity of emergency departments is diminishing. In 1991 there were about 2,500 departments in urban and suburban areas, now there are about 1,800 (Lobachova L, Brown DF, Sinclair J, Chang Y, Thielker KZ, Nagurney JT 2014). Even though additional staffing would help, there 's a primary problem of too many patients being directed into too few emergency departments and are not able to receive quality care that is demanded.