Page 61 - Avoiding Surgical Mishaps Part 1

SVMIC Avoiding Surgical Mishaps: Dissecting the Risks

obtain services at those locations.

Regardless of the type of system that you choose to employ,

successful implementation of electronic tracking requires that
you work closely with your EHR vendor to ensure that the key

elements of the tracking process are incorporated.

One additional opportunity for tracking with an electronic

system is the ability to use electronic interfaces with hospitals to
assist in tracking follow-up appointments after discharge of your

patients. If you have an EHR that is able to provide a daily or
weekly report of discharged patients to you, this report can then

be used by the staff to investigate whether or not the patient has
been scheduled for his/her follow-up appointment. In the event

that a follow-up appointment is not in the schedule, staff should
contact the provider to verify an appointment is needed. If so,

the patient should then be called to schedule an appointment.

Patient Notification

There should be a consistent method for notifying patients of
ALL test results and instructing them to call the office if they

have not received the results within the expected time frame.
These instructions to the patients, as well as actual patient

notification, should be documented in the medical record.
Although instructing the patient to call for test results does not

absolve the doctor of the duty to inform the patient, it does act
as another safety net to ensure that important test results do not

get overlooked and is a legitimate means of vesting the patient
in his/her own healthcare. The more layers of redundancy that

can be built into a system, the better.

It should be noted that, irrespective of a facility’s statutory

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