Higher price tags on healthcare professional liability claims have healthcare organizations searching for ways to prevent such claims or reduce costs when litigation does arise.
When healthcare organizations successfully capture and track incident data, and ensure incidents don’t slip through the cracks, they are more likely to be in a position to prevent future similar claims by identifying trends and taking corrective action, as well as defend themselves more successfully should litigation proceedings occur.
When healthcare organizations successfully capture and track incident data, and ensure incidents don’t slip through the cracks, they are more likely to be in a position to prevent future similar claims by identifying trends and taking corrective action, as well as defend themselves more successfully should litigation proceedings occur.
Manual documentation and communication regarding incidents can hinder how healthcare organizations effectively gather, analyze and react to data associated to potential or actual professional liability claims. Organizations that have automated their workflow using an Risk Management Information System (RMIS), however, have cited efficiencies in the following areas:
- Litigated Claims: The system can automatically send counsel links to status report forms on a regular basis—like every 30 days, for example. This makes it easy for attorneys to enter their updates. Reports are then saved with associated events or claims, along with investigation details and any related financial transactions. Essentially, this builds an entire story for a claim.
- Provider Incidents: Tracking the number of events associated with individual providers can be automated within the system to ensure quality care. The system runs a query against the entire database of events and then matches them with providers. This alleviates a supervisor, like the director of nursing, from spending so much time reviewing and manipulating spreadsheets at the end of the month to assess event details and whether further action is needed for involved providers.
- Investigations: Risk managers can create automated tasks within the system and send them to supervisors so they will know when investigations are due. Similarly, they can establish a list of follow-up tasks to review an event with a provider within a specified amount of days.
Being more efficient and diligent when it comes to capturing and tracking incident data, and following up on incident activity allows healthcare organizations to be more effective at reducing costs related to healthcare professional liability claims and litigation.
For more information on how to use advanced analytics to manage HPL claims, download our white paper. Or, contact us if you would like to see how you can become more efficient to combat healthcare professional liability claims.