Tag: healthcare

What to do When a Physician Makes a Mistake

Posted on by Brian Lee

INTRODUCTIONdoctor-563428_1920

Everyone makes mistakes, but unfortunately when physicians err, the consequences are usually more severe. As a result, having a crisis communications plan to cover this type of scenario, however unlikely, is essential for hospitals and clinics. These plans are designed to protect and restore public confidence in an individual and the organization itself.

WHY HAVE A CRISIS COMMUNICATION PLAN

When a crisis occurs, you usually don’t have any time to think–you’re too busy responding and reacting. A pre-written plan helps establish a mutually agreed upon process and course of action for hospital staff (e.g. CEO, legal, HR, etc.) to follow, if a physician mistake occurs.

Your plan also should have pre-written messages and an assigned spokeperson(s), which also will help your organization be faster and more proactive in working with the media and other audiences.

WHAT ACTIONS TO TAKE IN A HEALTHCARE CRISIS

So a mistake has been made, now how to react? Follow the action items in the crisis communications plan.

Your first audience should be internal. Show staff that the hospital or clinic is taking the situation seriously, be transparent with your course of actions and kill the rumor mill.

It’s also important to acknowledge the situation publicly. Do not deny it, and avoid saying “no comment” (which implies guilt). Remember, the victim in this scenario is the patient, not the physician.

Don’t let others shape the story. You want to stay ahead of it by explaining what happened and explaining what you plan to do (e.g. additional training, new safety procedures, etc.) to make sure the incident doesn’t happen again.

In your statement, you should apologize. The incorrect thinking is that apologizing leads to a lawsuit (read this study that shows “the link between litigation risk and the practice of disclosure and apology is tenuous”). Saying “I’m sorry” shows the physician and hospital are remorseful, which is important.

More often than not, the public is willing to forgive, especially if you follow these steps.

Building a Better Healthcare E-Newsletter

Posted on by Brian Lee

INTRODUCTION

newsletterAn e-newsletter is a regularly scheduled publication sent to a hospital’s stakeholders, such as patients, donors, community leaders and volunteers. As a result, an e-newsletter is a tool for customer retention, not customer acquisition.

Healthcare newsletters are an effective way to stay top-of-mind with recipients. They also can demonstrate how your hospital is a fixture of the community.

HOW TO SET UP A HEALTHCARE NEWSLETTER

You should use MailChimp over other email marketing platforms such as Constant Contact and Vertical Response for its ease-of-use, lower cost and integration with other programs, including CRMs.

After you’ve imported your contacts—remember, because email marketing is a form of permission-based marketing, these contacts must provide consent to be added to your list—you should segregate them, for example, by their relationship to your hospital. That way you can tailor your messages to each subscriber subset.

For your e-newsletter design, you can either modify existing templates, or you can upload your own custom HTML design. Set up blocks for 3-4 short articles and at least 1-2 graphics.

HOW TO CREATE RELEVANT NEWSLETTER CONTENT

First, you need to give your audiences a reason to subscribe to your newsletter. Make the promise of relevant, timely information, and be up front on the frequency of your emails (e.g. weekly or monthly).

Here are some topic ideas:

  • Humanize your hospital (e.g. write bios of physicians and staff).
  • Promote events (e.g. flu shots).
  • Share case studies and good deeds.
  • Educate on national health concerns (e.g. Zika virus).
  • Be transparent (e.g. report on the operations of the hospital).

Another ICD-10 delay ultimately hurts patients

Posted on by Brian Lee

Make no mistake. The U.S. healthcare system is broken. In fact, you should be amazed that the care you receive is as good as it is, meaning that it could be even worse, but it should be a lot better.

What I find particularly laughable is the ongoing delays to the deadline for ICD-10 to be adopted officially. ICD-10 is the latest international classification of diseases and health problems. As I’ve discovered in researching this for a client, its mandatory implementation has been delayed before, first six years ago from the original deadline of Oct. 1, 2011 to Oct. 1, 2013, then again to Oct. 1, 2014, and then again to Oct. 1, 2015.

Now comes news of basically another delay. The endless push for delays stems from healthcare and medical trade associations spending money to lobby for more and more delays instead of spending that same money on implementation. Here’s an example from the Texas Medical Association.

“One of the major things that is different this time around is that the big hospitals feel ready and we’ve moved into the reality that any further delay is just costing us money,” UMMC Dr. John Showalter said in an interview with healthcareITnews.com.

Did you know that ICD-9 was published in 1977 (though not adopted in the United States until 1995)? It’s so old that 50,000 existing codes can’t be used, most of the terminology is outdated and no new diseases can be added to it. That means healthcare itself can’t improve without the new codes.

“This freezing of ICD-9 does not allow for improvements in the disease specificity that we need to measure outcomes,” Dr. James Kennedy of FTI consulting told HC Pro.

Hospitals and other healthcare providers, as well as groups like the American Medical Association, need to stop whining and begin the implementation process. Otherwise, we can continue to say goodbye to innovation, cost savings and most importantly, patient safety.