It is widely accepted that an effective incident reporting system provides valuable information that has the potential to identify process work flows and working environment issues that are negatively impacting an organization's efforts in providing quality care and promoting patient safety. However, the idea and establishment of an effective incident reporting system goes beyond the design of a process which enables staff to input information about an incident. This is a tall order for any organization, especially in the healthcare industry where organizations are dealing with challenging issues related to managerial turnover, staffing shortages, and financial constraints that drive people to do more and more with less available time and resources.

In part one of this 90-minute webinar by compliance and risk manager expert, Frank Ruelas will give valuable tips for an organization wide initiative to succeed and why there has to be total acceptance and commitment by all members of the organization.  This level of acceptance and commitment then provides the foundation from which the initiative can then develop through the implementation of those processes that support it.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain the environmental factors that prevent effective incident reporting
• Discuss how staff can be part of the solution in overcoming issues related to incident reporting
• Explain several incident reporting process flows and how these change as the organization moves towards an effective incident reporting system
• Identify tools and already present skills sets by staff to assist in the processing of incident reports
• Describe a case study on how the incident reporting processes were modified to capture two particular categories of incidents: threats to staff by patients and medication errors

Target Audience:

• Compliance Officer
• Risk Manager
• Quality Improvement Director
• Database administrators (incident reporting systems)
• Quality Management Data Analysts
• Process Design and  Improvement Coordinators
• Patient Safety Officer
• Patient Safety Coaches

Level: All levels 

Meet Your Expert:

Frank Ruelas is a compliance and risk manager by trade.  Through his professional development, he has successfully branched out into the accreditation and regulatory arenas and now actively works with organizations to assist in their efforts to achieve compliance with accreditation or regulatory requirements.  Frank is a sought out contributor to various newsletters on various health care related topics and has spoken at conferences on topics to include Joint Commission compliance strategies, the safeguarding of the confidentiality of patient information, process design and improvement using statiscally based monitoring, and the increased use of already available technology to enhance organizational communication and efficiencies.
He received as associate degree from East Los Angeles College, his B.S. in Business at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and his M.B.A. from Arizona State University.

Sponsor:

The sponsor of this educational activity is AHC Media.

Refund Policy:

If you are not able to attend for any reason, please notify us as soon as possible. Webinar cancellations received prior to the start time of the webinar are fully refundable. If you prefer, you may substitute an upcoming webinar for the one you originally registered for.

Recorded: Tuesday, February 7, 2012