Overview: The hospital administrator at Mercy Vale has asked you to focus on ways to improve staff communication of important and critical results, which is one of the National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs). The NPSG is a quality and patient safety improvement program established by the Joint Commission (TJC) in 2003 to help accredited organizations address areas of concern regarding patient safety. The Joint Commission determines what these goals will be each upcoming year by consolidating perspectives from experts and stakeholders of emerging patient safety issues from the previous year. These derived goals are critical in that they inform events, standards and survey processes, performance measures, educational materials, and improvement projects.
Begin by investigating the current situation, then make your plans for improvement. It is your job as the HIM director to use the EHR to verify that, for those patients who have critical results, each of those critical results was communicated to both the primary care physician and the ordering physician.
Prompt: In a short paper, propose a plan to improve staff communication. Specifically, include the following:
· Describe in detail how you would go about analyzing the current situation at a healthcare facility.
· Propose how you would proceed to improve staff communication of important and critical results.
· Propose a strategy for ensuring compliance based on your knowledge of data regulations, standards, and policies.
· Relate the Joint Commission’s Patient Safety Goals to your proposal.
Guidelines for Submission: Your paper should be a 1- to 2 -page (not including references) Microsoft Word document with double spacing, Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, and APA-formatted citations for all sources used.
