Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM

Accurate and thorough documentation is a crucial element of high-quality patient care, and it’s a critical component of a sound risk management approach. Documentation provides essential patient information, historical details about the course of care, and a record of services. It also facilitates communication among caregivers, forms the basis for coding and billing, provides data pertinent to quality improvement, and may provide information that is critical to the defense of a legal action.

Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM

A significant hurdle in patient-centered care is effective communication throughout the care process. If patients do not understand their diagnoses, test results, recommended treatment plans, and follow-up instructions, they cannot fully participate in their care.

Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly trailblazing a path in healthcare with applications addressing administrative and logistical support, disease detection, precision medicine, predictive analytics, patient engagement, and more. AI is perhaps the most consequential advancement in modern medicine, and it offers hope to accelerate research, propel the discovery of new drugs and therapies, and vastly improve patient care. Yet, to deliver on these promises, the potential pitfalls of AI must be addressed.

Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM

Inadequate health literacy is a well-known issue facing many patients. Their inability to properly receive, process, understand, and act on health information can result in a host of problems, including uninformed decision-making, nonadherence to treatment plans, poor outcomes, and lack of trust in the healthcare community. Inadequate health literacy also can lead to misunderstandings and mismanagement of patient expectations, which can increase liability risk for healthcare providers.

Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM

In Season 2 of HBO’s hit show The PITT, doctors and nurses at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency department (ED) must take on an increased patient load due to a Code Black at a neighboring hospital. Several episodes after learning of the Code Black, staff at the Pitt learn the reason behind it — a widespread cybersecurity attack. They become aware only moments before their own systems are deliberately taken offline to prevent infiltration.