Dear Colleagues,
The theme of this issue of Patient Safety Link is “Physicians and Patient Safety.” Physicians play an important role in ensuring patient safety and providing quality care in their organizations. In this issue, we present several articles and resources that address this topic.
We’d like to highlight a new feature that has been added to the Joint Commission Web site with news and information especially for physicians. “New ‘For Physicians’ Page on the Joint Commission Web Site” offers a link to this resource.
In addition, the Joint Commission recently announced the establishment of a group that will provide advice regarding how to expand physician participation in the accreditation process and to broaden physician engagement in quality of care and patient safety initiatives. The article on “New Physician Engagement Advisory Group” provides more information on this new group.
We have provided an excerpt from JCR’s new publication Engaging Physicians in Patient Safety: A Handbook for Leaders. This book provides health care leaders with information to effectively engage physicians in the organization’s patient safety initiatives. The excerpt “Facilitating Physician Participation in Patient Safety: Improving Communication” offers communication tools for educating staff on how to avoid unsafe situations such as the following:
- Transferring incorrect or incomplete information from one provider to another
- Differing perceptions among caregivers regarding the same patient’s needs
- Disrupting new processes and systems
- Introducing errors into existing processes
The following two articles relate to the important topics of impaired physicians and disruptive behavior. An impaired physician has a physical, mental or behavioral problem that prevents him or her from providing safe, quality care to patients. Impaired physicians can be affected by depression, alcohol and drug dependence, physical illness and/or skill dyscompetency.
“Identifying Impaired Physicians: How to address problem physicians quickly” gives organizations the tools to identify impaired physicians as well as the resources to help those impaired physicians recover.
Whether it is tantrums, physical violence, or an uncooperative attitude, disruptive behavior among health care staff is a serious problem that negatively affects both patient safety and job satisfaction. It is important to note that disruptive behavior is exhibited not only by physicians but all types of health care providers and staff. In response to the high occurrence of such behavior and its negative impact on care, several organizations have developed strong policy statements and codes of conduct to both combat and control outbursts. “Civility in the Health Care Workplace: Strategies for Eliminating Disruptive Behavior” highlights the need for such measures and illustrates how leadership can integrate them into their organization.
The final article in this issue concerns the topic of defensive medicine. As litigation rises in cost and frequency, the threat of liability among physicians encourages the practice of defensive medicine wherein tests, high-risk procedures, medications, and specialist referrals are unnecessarily recommended. In the article “Defensive Medicine: Physicians’ fear of lawsuits may affect treatment,” a physician offers his view of the trend and provides recommendations based on a Joint Commission public policy.
How are physicians in your organization involved in promoting patient safety? Let us know about your success! Send an email to patientsafetylink@jcrinc.com.