Legal, Ethics and Patient Safety

Creating a Culture of Caring

Continuing education credits have been applied for nurses and case managers.

Program Objectives

• Discuss the risk professionals face in today’s complex health care environment.
• Describe a culture of caring.
• Discuss the importance of open communication between leadership, staff and patients.
• Explore methods of identification and prevention as ways to reduce risk and address ethical dilemmas.
• Understand the outcomes that can result from creating a culture of caring.

About the Webinar

Ten years after the Institute of Medicine released the landmark report To Err is Human, which claimed that 98,000 lives are lost each year in the U.S. due to preventable medical errors, the U.S. health care system has not taken action toward significant improvement. 

In addition, the cost of health care is rising at an alarming rate, causing insurance rate to rise and many employers to drop coverage for employees. As a result, more responsibility is put on the consumer of health care services, causing them to take a more active role while at the same time holding providers and payers of care accountable for outcomes. 

As lawmakers fight on Capitol Hill to find a way to reform health care, professionals engaged have the opportunity to improve within by:

• Implementing a system to prevent medical errors and improve transitions of care.
• Developing a national system of accountability through transparency as recommended by the IOM.
• Creating a way to track patient safety improvements.
• Ensuring practitioners and other health care professionals have requirements that mandate they demonstrate competency is patient safety practices.

Each professional has the power to improve the system by speaking up when they witness quality of care issues occurring. To encourage this, there needs to be communication mechanisms that are safe and protect the individual from retaliation. In addition, there needs to be a commitment from leadership to have open communication methods and to address concerns in a timely manner. Doing so will strengthen the organization’s ability to be aware of challenges that might put them at risk for legal challenges or become aware of ethical dilemmas that are occurring. 

This training session offers an opportunity to discuss, share ideas and ask questions of leading professionals who practice in the trenches and who handle legal and ethical challenges on a day to day basis.

Our Webinar Will Answer These Questions:

• What is a culture of caring?
• How can I, or we, empower patients to advocate for themselves?
• What measures are being used to ensure a culture of safety exists?
• What is the role of the payer as well as the individual provider in promoting quality and safety?
• What are the barriers professionals and consumers face that prevent them from “speaking up”?
• Why are organizations creating safe spaces?
• How can I, or we, defuse tension between productivity and patient safety?
• Has technology created work places that are so complex that understanding how things work is beyond the team responsible for caring for patients?
• How can I, or we, break down silos and really embrace patient-centered care?
• How can the health care team find ways to prevent conflicts between their own survival and being caring professionals?
• What does “risk” mean to the executive suite and how does “risk” differ from professionals taking care of people?
• How can efficient and safe health care impact the bottom line?
• What methods are being used in the private sector to move the culture of caring forward?

Faculty: