Patient Safety and Trust - Essay Example

Patient Safety and Trust

Introduction

Healthcare providers have the responsibility of ensuring that patients that seek their services are safe and their level of trust towards the organization is high. In achieving patient safety and trust there are both internal and external regulations whose sole purpose is to ensure that patients are safe. The aspects of these regulations include risk management, quality improvement and compliance programmes that are designed and implemented by the health care provider institution. The safety of the patient is the most important aspect of any healthcare provider thus programs offered should be ascertained to be hazard free while the quality of the services offered are regularly improved (Alken et al,2012). How a healthcare provider attains this is a matter of internal operations since their programs are supposed to comply with internal and external regulations that give emphasis on learner safety and trust. Healthcare providers are therefore expected to strive in ensuring that there are no cases of misdiagnosis, efficient means of getting the patients in the facility incase of an emergency and surveys on patient safety are regularly carried out for the facility to be more prepared on improving the safety of the patients from the surveys as well as use these results to change or improve their internal regulations on safety.

Analysis of the Compliance Management Scenario

The scenario in five-physician practice on the leak of confidential information on Mr. Stevens’ father is a perfect example of cases where patient confidentiality and trust on healthcare provider may be compromised. There are some mistakes revealed in this scenario starting with three clinic patient similar in the patient management system. This confused Denise who acted without knowing that the phone she made to Mr. Stevens went to his son’s house. There is a psychological implication in this because the Stevens were given information about their father’s medical condition that they had not anticipated or were not prepared for. Note that Sue realized this mistake after digging deeper into the patients’ records in the patient management system. Expectedly, a person who working in the front office and having worked tirelessly for the whole day would be difficult to notice that there are several similar names in the system. Definitely there will be a temptation to call the first name that appears and this is the mistake that Denise made.

Another mistake that was made is the nature of information passed to patients when contacted. Actually, the fact that Denise gave so much unnecessary information about the patient worsened the matter because a lot was learned about the disease the patient was suffering from. Mr. Stevens was reminded of the appointment in the hospital the following day but the voice mail went on to state that he was being treated for cancer. If the voice mail had only talked about the appointment and its time, the feeling that the senior Stevens’ privacy rights had been violated would not have occurred. Even if the voice mail was sent to his son’s home, they wouod not know what he was being treated for specifically and probably they would believe in what he had told them earlier that he was being treated for back pain.

The other mistake was improper filling of patients contact information in their accounts. There was a wrong number of senior Stevens’ details in the patient management system. His son’s number had been indicated to belong to him which prompted to the mistake of calling the son’s home. This is a major mistake because confidential information of the patients’ may unknowingly be disclosed to third parties which are a violation of the patients’ privacy rights. If this happens the patients’ trust on the healthcare provider may disappear and other problems as a result of this may face the facility such as legal battles. Another mistake was lack of indication in the physician dictation that Mr. Stevens’ medical condition should be kept confidential from his family. When Sue was following up the matter she noted that the senior Stevens did not state that his medication should be kept confidential from his family. This should have been reflected in the patient management system and would have guided Denise on the language to use when calling the patient to remind him of his appointment. The last mistake is that the workers in the front office were overworked and it is obvious that there were inadequate regular trainings on how they should handle communications with patients. This is indicated by the fact that Sue could not see Denise when she went in the front office but did so later, when Denise came to her office looking tired.

The mistakes described above are as result of violation of organizational compliance. Errors occurred due to mistakes that could be rectified at the organizational level. It is apparent that the facility has the framework to ensure that confidential information on patients is not given out to other people without their consent. Note that Sue declined to give information on the type of treatment Mr. Stevens’ father was being treated for because it was against the rules of the healthcare facility. Incorrect filling of patients’ contact details in the management system, use of more than one similar name for different patients in the system among other mistakes are the cause of these mistakes. The mistakes also bring on board an aspect of legal concern because even if the mistakes are done due to errors that can be rectified by the organization, patients’ privacy rights are violated if they fall victims to these mistakes.

The five mistakes discussed must be solved in order to avoid repeat of the same in future. Patient management system should be redesigned so that it is not possible to enter more than one people with exact names in it. If this has to happen, other particulars on patients should be captured such as the physical address in order to help workers in the front office differentiate them. The nature of the information conveyed to the patients on phone should be made to be as short and directory as possible. Information on the type of disease a patient is suffering from should never be communicated on phone whether talking to the patient or a relative; they should appear physically at the facility in order to get such information. Workers responsible for filling details on patients should be trained in order to reduce errors that occur during feeding of the data in the systems to avoid confusions when the patients are contacted. Further, training should be given to all the workers in the front office to specifically know the kind of information they should give when calling to patients to remind them of their appointments with the facility.

As healthcare organizations are embracing technology for their communication purposes with their clients, there are many legal risks which other employees should be aware of in order to mitigate them. The manager of the health information management (HIM) is responsible for the risks that arise from incompliance behavior by the clinics staff. For the manager to avoid such incidences he should play a leading role in teaching the staff what they are supposed to do in order to avoid mistakes that could have legal implications to the clinic. The staff should be trained on what is expected of them especially with respect to how they are supposed to handle customer information in possession of the healthcare provider. They should also be aware of the laws that govern their practice especially with respect to patient safety. Quality process improvement is vital as it has a direct impact on the reimbursement that a healthcare provider receives from the government (Alrubaiee & Alkaa’ida,2011). The clinic’s workers should therefore strive to improve the services offered by implementing the clinic’s vision of quality assurance.

The manager should train the clinic’s staff on data handling where they need to know that a person should never perform any duty with a data that they are not sure about. For instance if a patient is to be contacted but there is a similarity in the names for different people, proper consultation should be made to ascertain that the person to be contacted is the person intended to receive the information. If this does not happen the healthcare provider may be sued for violating the clients’ privacy rights which has legal implications. Staff in healthcare providers should also be aware of their code of ethics from which their behavior while at work is clearly addressed. It is the responsibility of the HIM manager to ensure that the staff is aware of ethics in their profession. Unethical behavior among a clinic’s workers may affect their work output which compromises the quality of health care offered and the trust patients may be having towards the clinic in future.

Patient authorization gives staff of a healthcare organization the green light to give confidential information on a patient to a third party through the patient filling a form that is usually designed by a healthcare organization (Jin et al,2009). Staff should understand patient authorization because it leads them to knowing the type of information patients do not want anyone to know including family members. Patient authorization also increases patients’ trust towards the organization because they are made to believe that unless they authorize specific information to be released to a third party, it cannot happen. Therefore there is the feeling that patients’ confidential information in hospitals remains so unless they authorize its release. If a patient learns that confidential information about them has been released to a third party there may be cases of psychological torture to the patient especially if their family had trusted them but did not convey such sensitive information to them. Further, the patient’s trust to the healthcare organization may no longer exist thereby avoid continuing medication with the facility which puts their lives in danger since they may skip medication or sessions that are vital for their recovery. Patient authorization is therefore a sensitive aspect of any healthcare organization which all staff must understand and respect.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and Privacy Rule give a person the right for information on their health to be kept a secret. Its amendment in 2013 (HITECH Omnibus Rule) further gave the requirements in which a confidential information on a person can be released to a third party (Goldstein & Pewen,2013). Generally, information of a person on their health can be released when they authorize it. The authorization should be in print but many states dictate there should be a voice authorization from the patient. Every healthcare organization has a form for authorization that should include the requirements that should be reflected by law. The person giving the authorization should be verified by looking into their identity. The person to be given the information should also be included with the specific reason for requiring the information. The person releasing the information then signs the form; there should be an avenue for revocation of the authorization if some important elements are missing such as signatures. The moment the authorization of the release of PHI is accepted is the time such information can be released to a third party. This protocol ensures that the patient has trust that information on them is safe as it cannot be accessed by a third party without their authorization.