Marcy A. Metzgar
The United States is facing a maternity healthcare provider shortage. What may reverse this trend is a robust and more diverse workforce of midwives educated through professionally accredited midwifery education programs.1
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Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM
Mitigating violence in healthcare is a top concern for all types of settings, from small office practices to large health systems. An important strategy in the toolbox for violence prevention is training staff how to de-escalate aggressive, hostile, and violent patient behaviors. Yet, as patient behavior intensifies and edges closer to violence, de-escalation becomes more challenging and secondary to protecting other patients and staff members. Thus, a crucial aspect of de-escalation is assessing patients for the potential for aggression before it occurs.
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Referring patients to specialists is common in both dental and medical practice. In fact, making appropriate referrals is a recommended risk strategy to avoid poor outcomes that result from practicing outside of one’s scope of expertise. However, healthcare providers can be accused of “negligent referral” if they refer patients to specialists who mishandle the patients’ cases and cause injuries.
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Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM
General surgeons face various risks in day-to-day practice. Adverse outcomes related to surgical treatment, diagnosis, and medical treatment can result from numerous factors, including issues with technical competency, clinical judgment, communication, documentation, and more.
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Laura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM
Throughout their careers, and in the course of providing patient care, healthcare providers are exposed to liability risk. One type of risk that providers face is inquiries from state boards as a result of complaints about negligent practice or unethical or illegal behavior. These complaints might come from patients, their families, other providers, the state attorney general’s office, media reports, and so on. In some cases, complaints to the board also might coincide with malpractice lawsuits.
Read moreLaura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM
Bias in healthcare is a persistent issue, both at institutional and individual levels. The downstream effect of this problem is evident in negative outcomes and health disparities for various populations. In particular, issues of bias have been noted in research focusing on variances in pain management. Studies have shown that:
Read moreLaura M. Cascella, MA, CPHRM
The impact of organizational culture on productivity, morale, staff retention, patient outcomes, safety, security, and overall well-being in healthcare is profound. A toxic culture can enable or even encourage a range of inappropriate and harmful behaviors, such as bullying, sexual harassment, microaggressions, and abuses of power.
Read moreSusan Lucot, MSN, RN, MLT (ASCP), CPHRM
The senior care and senior living fields face many challenges, especially in the aftermath of COVID-19. Issues include decreased quality in management and staffing, reduced adherence to resident selection and retention criteria, increases in state survey deficiency citations, and rising medical malpractice claims. A particularly alarming concern is the growing number of younger adults with behavioral health disorders (e.g., psychiatric conditions and substance use disorders) that are admitted to various types of senior care facilities.
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