Strategies and Policies to Implement to Protect an Organization from Liability

Liability can largely cost a company especially if it is not well prepared. Liabilities can arise from many business operations and among them are discontented employees who are fired for legitimate reasons. Apparently, to avoid all these unnecessary distractions a company can adopt preventive measures to protect themselves from potential liabilities. Some of these measures include reviewing and updating the anti-harassment policy to protect the organization from harassment and discrimination claims. The policy should give examples of prohibited conduct, state that harassment is illegal, and provide avenues where the employees can file their complaint. Another measure includes reviewing and updating the employee handbook. The employee handbook protects most companies from problems thus it needs to be reviewed and updated yearly. The handbook should contain policies such as at will policy, anti-harassment policy, reasonable accommodation policy, policies on workplace prevention of violence, policies on discipline and termination, policies on leave of absence, policies on drug and alcohol, and policies on hours of work. Moreover, another measure is reviewing and updating federal and state labor law notices which will inform the employees of their employment and labor law rights. Other measures include protecting confidential information, performing a wage and hour audit, seeking an employment practices liability insurance which protects the organization against employment related law suits.

It is a daunting task for an organization to ensure the products and services they offer are free from risks. Therefore, an organization can employ the following five steps to ensure they are protected from any liabilities. First, the organization should transfer risks through management of suppliers these will assist enable the organization to avoid liabilities that are caused by others. Second, if the organization imports goods it should ensure they meet the standards of the industry and governmental regulations also ensure there are proper safety warning and instructions are provided to the end user. Thirdly, during the designing of the product, the organization should look at the possible risks the product can cause to the end user. Ensure the product comply with the safety standards of the government and industry and a regular check review should be carried out to ensure the product complies with the latest standards. Fourthly, the organization should develop a policy of documentation so as to achieve requirements of the regulation and objectives of the business. Lastly, the organization needs to review the feedback of the client.

Responsibilities of a Health Care Manager

A healthcare manager works very closely with the medical staff and the industry suppliers to ensure the system is effectively managed. Some of the responsibilities of the health care managers include planning strategically; they are the spokesperson of the health care, ensure collaboration in the healthcare, they ensure management of the staff among others. Healthcare managers are in charge of making decisions for the organizations, creating a vision for the healthcare and ensure the goals meets with the budget, practitioner goals, and community needs. This, therefore, enables them to ensure the standard of practice for the doctor, medical instruments, and medicine comply with the governmental standards and regulations. The healthcare manager represents the system during any public relation and in this case, is litigation the health care manager will provide information to the public about the facility. The manager also collaborates with the medical staff leaders to ensure coordination of the day to day activities of the facility. Therefore he will look at what standards are in play for performance and how to conduct an evaluation of each type of employee.

Strategies to Minimize Liability

Some of the strategies include conducting communications that are open and honest, seeking informed consent from the client or third parties, ensuring the standards and training are up-to-date, ensuring adequate follow-ups of diagnostic and specialist referrals, among others. Faulty communication can be a major cause for a lawsuit for any health care center. Therefore, physicians are advised to be very genuine and open when giving information since not all the outcomes that are bad are due to malpractice, but faulty communication is a driving force when a patient is considering litigation. The lack of informed consent plays a significant role in a lawsuit. Consequently, physicians should ensure their patient are aware of the therapy they will undergo and are they are also aware of the repercussions. Additionally, the doctors need to keep up to date with the standard malpractice with include things like changes in the management of chronic and acute diseases, advancements in the technology, read recent published research and standards of practice.

Litigation Risks Faced by a Healthcare Organization

Compared to the previous landscape the present healthcare landscape is the most difficult one with issues emerging from all over the corner. Therefore, if not effectively managed, these issues can be the lead cause of bad outcomes in a hospital such as government fines, increased malpractice, government penalties and these may have a negative effect on the health cares brand and reputation. Examples of these emerging issues include cyber risk, healthcare infections, telemedicine, violent incidences in the hospital, alarm fatigue among others. When the industry of healthcare adopted the electronic healthcare records, they become more vulnerable to cyber risks which have a significant effect on the operations of the hospital. It is assumed at least one of 25 patient is infected by health care acquired infection and this highly costs the healthcare systems and has seen deaths of a lot of people. Therefore, the health care management should ensure their sanitation system is up to date, and every employee knows how to use it to keep the patients safe. The innovation of telemedicine allowed physicians to treat a patient in remote areas. Telemedicine can be a cause for a lawsuit due to negligence especially if the provider does not have proper training, experience, and credentials. Health care centers can be places where people seek medication but they have also become places of violence, and the targets are mostly the physicians who are prone to attacks, intimidation, harassments among others.

Who is Responsible for Identifying Clinical and Administrative Problems.

The healthcare manager plays a significant role in leading the operations of various types of medical facilities. Therefore, they are very good at identifying the clinical and administrative problem and the potential solution to these problems. Therefore, it is evident that they want a safe healthcare system that is accessible and affordable to all patients. Consequently, they will need tools and resources such as data sets, assessment and performance measure, clinical care guidelines, and quality measurement indicators to achieve these goals. These tools will help them in developing policies and programs that will improve the accessibility of health care, ensure accountability, assist in guiding clinical decision making among others.