MHA's Society for Risk Management

MHA & HPICO offering seminar on Medicare secondary payer mandatory reporting

On Jan. 27 from 8 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., the Mississippi Hospital Association and HPICO are co-hosting a seminar on Medicare secondary payer mandatory reporting. The target audience for the session is CEOs, CFOs, Risk Managers, and Compliance Officers.

Section 111 of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 (MMSEA) adds new mandatory reporting requirements for group health plan arrangements and for liability insurance (including self insurance), no-fault insurance, and workers compensation. The penalties for non-compliance are severe. This program will provide an overview of the mandates, the logistics of implementing the claimant reporting and settlement set-asides for liability claims, consequences of failure to follow the mandated requirements and applicable penalties, and risk management considerations to ensure compliance. Speakers will include Eugene Naylor, Attorney, Wise, Carter, Child & Caraway; Renee O’Hair, PMSI Settlement Solutions; and Lynda Plummer, Director of Risk Management, HPICO.

For more information, contact Robin Powell at (800) 289-8884, (601) 368-3214 or rpowell@mhanet.org.

Re-invent risk management by boosting near-miss reporting

Much evidence suggests that current risk management practices do little to increase patient safety. "Patient safety incidents show no decline," according to HealthGrades' evaluation of 2006-08 data. What's more, over 52 percent of employees don't report any medical errors, according to data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Read more here.

Which health care workers are most likely to be assaulted?

Are hospitals and other health-care facilities dangerous places to work? That’s one of the questions raised by a September shooting at the Johns Hopkins Hospital that left the gunman and his mother — a patient — dead and a surgeon injured, write two Hopkins physician researchers. In a commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the two also discuss what security measures should be taken at health-care facilities.

Read more from the Wall Street Journal here.

Top 10 Healthcare Technology Hazards for 2011

Frequent hazardous procedures providers should anticipate in 2011 are alarm overloads, cross contamination, data loss, and others, ECRI Institute has announced. Learn more here.

The Benefits of Enterprise Risk Management

Patient-centric enterprise risk management can create a high-reliability organization. By looking at problem triggers instead of effects, hospitals can take a comprehensive approach to avoiding to undesirable outcomes.

Read more from Hospitals & Health Networks here.

HHS proposes HAI prevention strategies for ambulatory surgery, renal facilities

The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Healthcare Quality seeks public comment on draft strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections in ambulatory surgical centers and end-stage renal disease facilities, and a strategy to increase flu vaccination among health care personnel. Developed by HHS' Steering Committee for the Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections, the agency proposes to add the strategies as Tier 2 modules to its "Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections," which currently focuses on reducing hospital-associated infections.

HHS will accept comments on the draft modules through Oct. 11.

Med Mal/ER Use Video On Health Affairs Site

How much does the medical liabilty system add to health care costs? How can medical errors be reduced? How often are nonemergency patients treated in hospital emergency departments, and how can those patients be shifted to more appropriate settings?

These are some of the questions that were discussed at a September 7 National Press Club briefing sponsored by Health Affairs. Video of the briefing and speaker presentation materials are available on the Health Affairs Web site. The briefing featured authors from the September issue of Health Affairs, titled “Medical Malpractice And Errors,” which was released at the event.

Medical Error Disclosure Program Found to Reduce Lawsuits

A program at the University of Michigan Health System to inform patients of harmful medical errors and offer compensation not only saw legal claims drop more than 25%, it also accelerated the resolution of remaining legal issues, study says.

Read more here.

Virginia Mason reports on five years of mandatory flu shots

Widely known as the first health care facility to implement a mandatory influenza vaccine policy, Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center has published a report in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology on the success of the program and the steps and obstacles involved.

Click here for more on the report.

Hospital MRSA Infection Rates Plunge 28%

Invasive, hospital-onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections decreased "dramatically and significantly" by 9.4% per year from 2005 to 2008 a Journal of the American Medical Association report says.

No need for additional infection-control standard, AHA tells OSHA

Hospitals have effective and comprehensive programs in place that integrate the need to protect patients and health care personnel from infectious diseases, and there is no need for an additional standard, the American Hospital Association said Aug. 4 in a letter to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"The existing infection prevention and control standards, including their assessment and enforcement by regulatory, accrediting and certifying bodies, have proven to be functional and appropriate, and substantial resources are dedicated to their regular maintenance and improvement," AHA wrote, responding to OSHA's request for public comments on the issue of occupational exposure to infectious agents in health care settings. Hospitals follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and recommendations for protecting caregivers and patients from infectious disease, which are enforced by hospital accrediting and certifying bodies such as The Joint Commission and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

"In order to justify a new standard, OSHA must demonstrate that these comprehensive and stringently enforced programs are insufficient, and that gaps in the existing programs have led to measurable increases in occupationally acquired infections," AHA said.