Medical Group Practice: An experiment in creating a customized risk management tool

This meeting has been approved for a total of 1.0 contact hours of Continuing Education Credit toward fulfillment of the requirements of ASHRM designations of FASHRM (Fellow) and DFASHRM (Distinguished Fellow) and towards CPHRM renewal

Online occurrence reporting, patient safety and risk management information systems are a critical tool for any Risk Manager to provide planned and organized use of information technology. These tools foster patient safety by facilitating a rapid response after an adverse event, incident or near miss, and by tracking and providing staff feedback about those events. Such tools improve communication, make knowledge more readily accessible, and provide fast and precise decision support.

Through the support of a grant we have successfully implemented a customized, specialty focused occurrence reporting system with risk management tools that supports multiple our ambulatory surgery center clients. This reporting system has enhanced our real time reporting and assists in triggering patient safety event reviews that may have unforeseeable outcomes and require a closer look, discussion and possibly statutory reporting to the New Jersey Patient Safety Reporting Network.

Critical to the data collection process and end-users success in this grant project was software customization that reflects key events and practice workflow for our ambulatory surgery center clients. This customization is often not provided by many existing systems designed for acute care settings. Additionally key risk management tools, such as a strategically placed feedback loop was included in the software to assure expedient requests from our Risk Management Department staff to Leadership for an event review and suggested corrective actions or process improvements on missed issues or lesser severity outcomes.  

This presentation will illustrate that customized and focused occurrence reporting in a multi-specialty medical group setting has fostered the practice’s ability to create an enhanced Culture of Safety and drive risk management initiatives.

Objectives for the webinar:

1. Identify the importance of customizable occurrence reporting software in the promotion of a Culture of Safety in the ambulatory care setting

2. Understand the value of embedding a feedback mechanism within the software to develop a means of secure communication between risk management and leadership

3. Recognize the valuable relationship between a software’s ability to produce meaningful data reports and the impact to enhance performance improvement

 Speakers:

Donna Tarulli, MN, RN, CPHRM, CPHQ has greater than 30 years of experience in healthcare risk management, performance improvement and patient safety, additional background include oncology and nursing administration. She is a Past President and served on the BOD of the Southern California Association for Healthcare Risk Management (SCAHRM) from 1984 to 2007, is a member of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management, SHCRM NJ and the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ). She has published and spoken extensively nationally on a variety of risk management topics. Currently she is the Director of Risk Management for Summit Health Management and oversees Risk Management/Patient Safety, Patient Relations, Insurance and Employee Health Services.

Meghan McCord-Zaro, RN, BSN, MSJ has 20 year experience in healthcare, seven of which are in healthcare risk management and patient safety. Her background includes office practice, critical care, ambulatory surgery centers and regulatory compliance of licensed healthcare facilities. As the Manager of Risk Management at Summit Health Management, Meghan is responsible for Risk Management/Patient Safety for surgical specialties, all ambulatory surgery clients, imaging, radiation oncology, nuclear medicine and laboratory. She supervises staff that manages other key areas of medical specialties. She is the administrator of the customized software, our new risk management tool. She is also a member of ASHRM and its local chapter, SHCRM-NJ.