Improving Patient Satisfaction One Patient At a Time

In the medical professions, improving customer service means improving patient satisfaction and patient loyalty. This is an important area to focus on, more so than in any other business types, because basically it means that you’re practicing health care services in the most efficient, effective, and practical way possible.

 

An unsatisfied customer in a restaurant - well, he’ll impact the business by eating elsewhere, but no one’s life is at stake. In a medical practice of any kind, dissatisfaction can lead to disengagement that can be life threatening for the patient, and that can prevent adequate patient care.

 

In a very practical sense, if a patient doesn't receive a good quality of customer service, it can also impact the medical office’s bottom line. Having satisfied patients means loyalty, success in a competitive marketplace, and improvements in health care and health care delivery.

 

After all, patients are a strong part of the accountability equation in healthcare. Their selection of your medical office means that healthcare delivery is measured favorably. If you don’t receive a favorable measurement, you’ll end up with no patients. And regardless of your capabilities in healing, if your patients don’t come to the table, you can’t heal.

 

Attracting and satisfying patients depends on customer service. And customer service relies upon communication and accessibility. Of course when you do communicate well, you are satisfying patients. This leads to the attraction of more patients. Your accessibility to your patients and the broader community around you leads to a healthy business model.

 

So What are Some Practices Steps to Improve Customer Service and Satisfaction?

 

Timely service is key.  Deliver service to the patient on your patient’s schedule. Eliminate long waits for lab test result distribution. Create a practice-wide goal of responding to patient questions, via phone, email, or in person. Don’t put off your patient’s concerns until it is convenient for you.

 

Scheduling is also important. Timing appointments to eliminate long wait times is practical and efficient for patients and staff alike.

 

Organization. Like timely service and scheduling, organization is a part of any successful business. In a medical practice this means delegation of tasks, time efficiency measures, and respecting the duties of others within your organization.

 

Peaceful environment. Patients and staff alike do not respond well to disrespect. And why should they? No bullying. We know that you’re not operating a yoga practice. But we can all learn from the serenity of yogis everywhere. Calm down, deep breath, no bullying, respect. Every employee should know how to address patient concerns and complaints.

 

Language skills. Sometimes even with the best of intention, words can wound or disregard. Non-verbal cues are also important. Make good eye contact. Use non-judgmental phrasing. Eliminate boundary markers between patients and staff. 

 

Stay blame free. This contributes to improved language skills and a peaceful community. Speak clearly, use facts, not accusations. An employee may make a mistake once, but if that same mistake happens again, it’s just as likely to be the fault of the medical system or community in which he or she is operating.

 

Overall, we find that patient satisfaction is rapidly becoming a top priority for health care providers nationwide. Quality of care, quantity of care, these are bound areas, not separate from one another.

 

Providers are rewarded for good service as the nationwide Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put into practice the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program, distributing funds  to hospitals based on quality measures through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey.

 

Improving service is more and more about improving the entire cultural experience of a health care practice, including it’s efficiency, character, and patient outcomes.

 

The $37,500 Mistake Truck Drivers And Medical Office Staff Have In Common

Avoid Fines From $495- $37,500 By Having All  Staff Do Required D.O.T. Training.

Both truck drivers and medical office staff who deal with any aspect of shipping or receiving hazardous chemicals, waste or other hazardous materials are ALL required to have D.O.T training. D.O.T training gives employees the ability to know the specifics behind shipping hazardous materials. Just think… who in your office signs off on the medical waste manifest when your provider comes to pick up waste? Who signs off on the hazardous waste from your lab or surgical center? Can you prove that these employees have been trained and do all your training efforts include:

i. General awareness/familiarization
ii. Function-specific, training
iii. Safety
iv. Security awareness
v. In-depth security training, if a security plan is required
vi. Driver training (for each hazmat employee who will operate a motor vehicle) *most likely not needed for medical staff.

With fines ranging from $495 up to $37,500 per violation (each piece of paper with a signature from your staff who does not carry a certification could be separate violations) There is no reason not to have your staff properly trained. If you currently do not train staff on these trainings there are plenty of places to get this training cheap including my organization.

By: Steve Gallion, CEO, MedTrainer.com

Steve Gallion has been providing healthcare related compliance consulting and services to the industry for over 10 years. He has had multiple companies from IT Security Compliance and Healthcare Waste Management to Regulatory Training and Compliance. He is an expert in many areas of healthcare compliance including OSHA, HIPAA, DOT, Billing and Accreditation. You can learn more about Steve and his company at http://www.medtrainer.com.

Does your office have a plan to protect against hackers gaining access to PHI?

     There are many stories that we here on the news about hackers getting our credit card information but what about hackers gaining access to your social security number, health records, and so much more. HIPAA was put into place to assist healthcare organizations on protecting one’s individual health information. How compliant is your office with HIPAA? Does your office understand the complexity of HIPAA and the new adaptation of the Omnibus Rule? Safety and Compliance training is what get offices into compliance. MedTrainer is a system will help your office get into compliance fast! MedTrainer offers an extensive HIPAA course that assures that all the employees understand the complexity of HIPAA and tests them on their knowledge.

     Our goal at MedTrainer is to keep compliance and training management simple, affordable, comprehensive and engaging.  We strive to save organizations money while keeping them compliant with federal, state and local regulations without over complicating the process.

Take a look at what can happen with a breach of protected health information.

http://www.okcfox.com/story/26306405/hackers-gain-access-to-45-million-patients-records-includes-oklahoma-hospitals

6 Ways MedTrainer Helps You Ensure HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA enforcement activities have been on a rise and MedTrainer would like to help your organization stay compliant with state and federal regulations. Given that the penalties for violating HIPAA have increased under the final rule, this is a situation that organizations want to avoid. With MedTrainer organizations can easily manage all users online and quickly see what compliance & safety training needs to be addressed.

1.     Development of privacy policies. Healthcare organizations must develop, adopt and implement privacy and security policies and procedures document all of their policies and procedures, including steps to take when a breach occurs. MedTrainer develops you safety and plans and incident reports with one simple click.

2.     Appointment of privacy and security officers. MedTrainer lets you create an Admin to easily manage all of your employees even at multiple locations so you can ensure that all staff is up to date with their training.

3.     Conducting regular risk assessments. Healthcare organizations should regularly conduct risk assessments and can easily be does online with MedTrainer as you can review where each student is at with their training. When audits come around the admin can view what areas of safety and compliance your organization needs the training so they can get up to par with state and federal compliance regulations.

4.     Training. MedTrainer assists with training employees who use or disclose protected health information and documents that training online and is an essential step to ensuring HIPAA compliance. MedTrainer also offers refresher courses and helps train the employees in new policies and procedures.

5.     Adoption of potential breach protocols. A protocol for investigating potential breaches of protected health information is a must. MedTrainer easily creates a document of the results of the investigation and stores the incident report within the MedTrainer database where the Admin can easily access it.

6.     Implementation of privacy policies. Privacy and security policies must be properly implemented by healthcare organizations, and they should sanction employees who violate them. MedTrainer assists management with these processes with the incident report builder.

MedTrainer will help healthcare organizations ensure that they remain HIPAA compliant, schedule a free online demo at www.medtrainer.com/demo. 

The Benefits of Online Safety & Compliance Training and Learning with MedTrainer

MedTrainer is an online based Compliance & Safety Management Training system that can benefit health organizations in many ways.

Convenient

MedTrainer provides online training participants with easy and convenient access on any computer or mobile device, there is no special software needed. Staff can also access the training on their schedule when they have the time. Management can conveniently edit and upload safety plans and incident reports.

Immediate and Cost-Effective

Online Safety & Compliance training with MedTrainer is immediate, cost effective and easily affordable. There are no set-up fees and all inclusive pricing. Get instant Blood borne pathogen, HIPPA, & OSHA training.            

Easy and Fun

MedTrainer is a new way to learn Safety & Compliance and is enjoyable for staff to participate in. There are no more boring lunch and learns or seminars needed to attend with all the training done on any device with internet access.

For more information on the benefits of online training for healthcare organizations and a list of our online courses, please visit www.medtrainer.com or to schedule a demo visit www.medtrainer.com/demo.

How to Handle a Common Hazard: The Needle Stick Injury

The needle stick injury. You know you want to avoid it, and you want your staff members to avoid it this hazard, too. And yet sometimes - accidents can happen. We’re talking about an accidental needle stick, a common occupational hazard. How common? Approximately 295,000 accidental needle stick injuries occur annually, based on an International Health Care Worker Safety Center report. However, the CDC indicates a higher number is likely, as these numbers are based on self-reported incidents. On the whole, needle stick incidents are under-reported.


 Naturally, it’s vital that health care staff experiencing an incident receive immediate attention. The goal, obviously, is to lower the risk of contracting a pathogen, to lower the chances of contracting diseases like HIV or human immunodeficiency virus, Hepatitis C or HCV, and HBV or Hepatitus B.

According to a recent article in The Hospitalist magazine, making a rapid, skilled response to a needle stick injury greatly decreases such disease risks.



Can training staff to avoid needle stick situations help? At MedTrainer, our course offerings are designed to help medical staff do so. And, can proper training help to mitigate adverse affects, should accidents occur? Absolutely. MedTrainer’s program emphasize not just rules and regulations, but practical solutions to accidents.

So let’s take a look at what a healthcare worker should do if a needle stick injury occurs.



First: Wash the area with soap and water. Yes, you can use antiseptic solutions, too, but there is no data that recommends this use as reducing the potential of disease transmission versus the use of soap and water.

Second, seek out care in your facility. Report any sharp related injury to the appropriate person or department. Identify the patient source from the needle stick, to evaluate the potential of disease. Remember, the rate of disease transmission is reduced significantly if post-exposure prophylaxis is employed.



A health care worker receiving a needle stick injury is at greater risk for transmission of disease than with other occupational exposures. Receiving with a deep injury, or one obtained with a device contaminated with blood, or involving a needle that has been placed in a patients vein, increases that hazard.

However, contracting HIV after a needle stick injury is comparatively rare. Following needle stick injury even involving a known HIV-positive patient source, there is a one-year risk of only 0.3%. Naturally this doesn’t mean that needle stick injuries should be taken lightly, and staff should be educated in both the hazards, care of avoiding such an injury, and in regard to treatment and actions following such an incident. But it does mean that staff members affected by needle sticks should not panic.




Hepatitis B virus is more easily spread through needle stick incidents, however, the use of  immunization by healthcare staff has created a significant decline in such infection.

All the same, unless post-exposure preventative measures are employed,  a healthcare worker exposed to the virus through a needle stick has a 6% to 30% risk of becoming infected, with the greatest risk from a patient known to be hepatitis B e antigen-positive. But don’t panic: when administered within one week of injury, multiple doses of hepatitis B immune globulin, otherwise known as HBIG, will protect 75% of exposed health care workers from transmission.

In short, quick action regarding needle stick exposure will dramatically help to prevent such diseases. Cleaning the wound, identifying the patient source and any HIV, HCV or HBV status, and identifying the need for and acting on prophylactic treatment is all key.

At MedTrainer we know that educating healthcare staff is vitally important to promote healthy reactions to needle stick accidents. Learning about seroconversion rates, options for prophylactic treatment and more will assist in fast action and accurate evaluation of risk.

If a source patient is known to be HIV-positive, has a positive rapid HIV test, or if HIV status cannot be quickly determined, prophylactic treatment should be performed, using a two or three drug regimen.

Such treatment, when indicated, should begin ASAP. While most health care workers who receive an accidental needle stick will not develop an infection, it is always important to minimize risk. Receiving the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) series vaccine, cleaning any needle stick immediately, reporting the exposure, testing the source patient’s health status, and if necessary administering the correct prophylactic procedure will greatly reduce the chance of infection.

Healthcare workers who accidentally receive needle stick injuries require immediate identification and attention but with this action are at relatively low risk of disease.

Another aspect of education is proper prevention of needle sticks in the first place. MedTrainer’s educational system is designed to train and prevent costly injuries. One educational tip: preventing the transmission of disease by needle stick injuries is aided greatly by wearing gloves. A majority of injuries occur during the handling of a needle between use and disposal rather than actually during use. Training programs that explain and illustrate care used when dealing with needles and sharps offer a jump in safety in particular where needle discards are concerned. Emphasizing care and caution in handling needles and sharps before and after use is vital, and training programs that do so result in a large jump in staff safety.


Along with proper training and education, and access to safety enhancements such as gloves, making sure staff has proper rest breaks is also key to preventing needle stick injuries. In fact, health care workers had on average been working over fifteen hours before injury, and over fifty percent of these workers indicated that fatigue was a strong component to injury. Long hours without rest breaks are basically a costly accident waiting to happen.

Rest breaks are important to staying alert and relieving the potential for exhaustion.

Another training aspect to stress is to prevent recapping of needles. Emphasizing this point reduces the chance of injury. Many staff members who received injury were, in fact, recapping.



Also vital to stress: reporting needle stick injuries. Recent studies have shown that only about one in four were reported. Without reporting such incidents, prophylactic care is not received, even when clearly indicated.

Yes, needle stick injuries are an occupational hazard. Being educated about proper procedures to prevent such occurrences and how to handle such a situation if it occurs is highly recommended. Prompt treatment of such injuries is vital.

Educating staff on proper procedures should such an accident occur, on disease transmission rates, as well as on careful procedures to avoid needle stick incidents in the first place, are all a part of a healthy, informed staff. And MedTrainer can help you achieve just that.

Trips, Slips, Falls - and Lawsuits

Trips, slips, and falls can be costly to employees, employers, and patients. And they should be avoided, due to both personal pain and suffering, and a different kind of pain and suffering that can occur when the victim sues. Whether it's an employee or a client who is injured, loss comes in a variety of ways.

A case in point: just a few months ago, a New Jersey customer filed a federal lawsuit against a Pennsylvania Home Depot store - because she was injured after slipping in standing water outside the business. Plaintiff Darleen Cook  suffered a cracked pelvis, herniated disc,  fractured sacrum,  and neck and back pain. She alleged that workers at the store had done absolutely nothing to prevent water from pooling at the store’s entrance on a rainy September day. And she’s seeking  $150,000 in damages.



Couldn’t happen in your practice? But it can. One  moment of inattention, one piece of clutter, one slippery floor. A stumble, trip, slip, or fall - and whether the accident affects a staff member or a client, it can lead to serious injury, serious costs, and even a lawsuit, just like the one filed in New Jersey. A wide variety of conditions and situations set the stage for these workplace accidents.

Naturally, you want to prevent them. But where to start? MedTrainer  can help. We offer the courses you need to train your staff to become aware of and compliant in OSHA standards both federal and state - including rules and regulations designed to prevent slips, trips and falls.

Did you know that per the U.S. Department of Labor, slips, trips and falls cause:

    15 percent of all accidental deaths per year, the second-leading cause behind motor vehicles
    25 percent of all reported injury claims per fiscal year
    More than 95 million lost work days per year

That's significant, and appalling data.

To prevent these situations, you need staff members who are trained and aware. From situations such as the wet surfaces that opened Home Depot up to a law suit, to the use of proper signage and clean up techniques that help staff and patients alike to avoid uneven floors, loose mats, damp or freshly waxed floors to the prevention of clutter, open drawers, loose cords or cables - it all starts with staff members who know what to guard against.



Workplace falls after all cause both pain and suffering, lost time, and the legal pain that can come from lawsuits, and a lack of adherence to OSHA standards. OSHA fines are nothing to brush aside, they can be costly. At MedTrainer we’re geared toward preventing fine assessment and helping you become fully OSHA compliant, and safe.

Statistics show most of the falls that occur in the workplace happen on the same level, not going up or down stairs or from a height. These slips usually happen when there isn’t enough traction between your shoes and the surface you’re walking on. Tripping means losing your balance due to loss of traction, meeting another object, being unaware of cords, loose carpet or mats, and the like. But both situations occur when your feet and the walking surface they’re striding on meet in an unexpected fashion.


Staying clutter free is one of the most important ways to prevent falls and tripping. Clean up spills and indicate any wet areas with signs or cones. Don’t let clutter build up, even if you think it’s safely tucked away beneath a desk. Establishing a system that manages and identifies any risk areas, and encouraging staff members to be compliant with safety procedures are the key elements of preventing a slip or trip safety issue. Let’s look back at that Home Depot incident. Proper signage warning of puddling, and clean up of standing water could’ve prevented a world of trouble for the business, and for the injured plaintiff. Did they know to use these techniques and fail to utilize them? Or did they simply not know? Regardless, somewhere down the line there was a lack of essential training necessary to successfully follow OSHA guidelines.



It’s always important to keep a sharp eye out for areas that will keep your workplace safe.
Slips, trips and falls cause personal injury that can be quite severe. And yet so many of these incidents are completely preventable by following standard precautions and safety measures.

Staying safe at work prevents injury and illness, avoids staff stress, regulatory fines, and the potential for lawsuits. In short, making the workplace safe is vitally important for all aspects of the healthcare professions.

Over 653,000 nurses and other healthcare staffers are injured yearly. There’s a number that truly needs reducing. At MedTrainer, we provide the comprehensive safety training to prevent all types of slips and falls and keep healthcare staff and patients both safe and healthy, as well as adhering to OSHA requirements.



While training in safety and compliance is essential, there are some basic you can use right now to help your hospital, medical, dental, or veterinary practice be safer. First of all, always follow good housekeeping - leaving clutter, cords, or spills around leads to a high incidence of injuries, citations, and increased insurance rates, too. Put together a program to establish cleaning procedures as routine, plan the work, and assign responsibilities for completing it.

Second, eliminate wet or slippery areas - or place proper signage or cones indicating they are present. This includes the parking lots and sidewalk space that caused trouble at Home Depot. Clean up spills quickly.

Third, pay attention to the state of traction on surfaces. Need abrasive strips to prevent slips? Anti-skid paint? Moisture absorbing mats in entrance areas and near sinks?

Fourth, get rid of obstacles. That means clutter, equipment that’s out of place, cords, and cables. Eliminating these hazards is key to preventing trips and falls. Close file drawers, unpack boxes and get rid of the packing material promptly.

Fifth, keep an eye on visibility. Are things well lit? Poor lighting means poor footing. Yes, work areas should be well lit and clean, and it’s also important that staff understand to turn on a light when entering a darkened room, keep light switch areas clean and accessible, repair any cords are switches or fixtures that malfunction, and replace any burnt-out bulbs.
 
It’s also vitally important - and a part of the structured, easy to follow, online training MedTrainer offers - to get staff members on board with these necessary safety and compliance steps. Being in too much of a hurry, or carrying too much at one time can lead to falls. Wearing sunglasses in low-lit areas can contribute, major distractions such as texting or talking on a cell phone...also lead to big problems with on the job injury.

Preventing distractions, instructing staff members, and caring about the workplace environment requires an overall shift in direction for many healthcare offices. It’s a shift that’s worth making: prevent trips, falls, spills and you are preventing injury, fines, work loss, and lawsuits. It’s that simple.

Infection Prevention

Can preventing infection really save lives? The short answer is a definitive yes. After all, each
year, the lives of patients are lost due to the spread of infections in hospitals. Staph and other infections attack those with lowered immune systems. Health care workers are taking steps to prevent infection and control the spread of infectious diseases.

Both in and out of a hospital setting, the single most effective way to stop infections from spreading is hand washing. Patients should be encouraged to remind friends and family as well as their health care givers to wash their hands. Other steps are also pretty practical and basic - common sense that you would think more people would simply use by rote, and yet do not.


These steps include covering coughs or sneezes with one’s arm rather than hand, or not at all; keeping up to date on immunizations, and making both tissues and hand sanitizers available and within easy access. In the medical profession, it’s key to use gloves, masks, and protective clothing, as well as to carefully follow guidelines in regard to blood or contaminated items.

To prevent transmittal of communicable diseases in health care settings, infection prevention and control is simply necessary. Following a basic comprehension of disease epidemiology, health care staff should be aware of the risks that can increase patient risk, and the procedures and treatments that can present a fertile situation for infection to exist.


Just how risky is it for patients in terms of requiring an infection associate to health care? It depends on there things: the procedure that’s performed, the patient’s health to begin with, and the type of patient/care received.

And for health care staff? Well, health caregivers should be vaccinated against diseases, and wear proper clothing, such as gloves and masks, know as PPE or personal protective equipment. This specialized sanitary clothing is worn to protect against contact with infectious organisms. It includes respiratory protection. And of course following proper hand hygiene procedures such as hand washing, hand sanitizer, and instructing patients on proper hand hygiene is also vital. Outside and inside the medical setting, proper hand hygiene can eliminate about half of all foodborne illnesses as well as helping to reduce the spread of flus and colds. Injection safety is also an important way to prevent infection.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s known as HAI or Healthcare Associated Infections. These are infections that are acquired when patients are receiving treatment, whether for surgical or medical conditions. They can occur in any setting- doctor’s office, hospital, dentist. Precautions that reduce the possibility of infection are key, whether prevention is taken against transmission due to infection agents from environmental surfaces or from bodily fluids.



Patients should be conscious of infection risks, and be integrated into the process of preventing it whenever possible. How so? Patients who enter the hospital for surgery or receive outpatient surgical treatments, if the procedures are planned for, can lower their risk of infection by stopping smoking if a smoker, losing weight, if obese, and controlling blood sugar if diabetic. High blood sugar causes a noticeable uptick in infection risk. Other precautions should also be followed. For example, if a patient needs hair removed prior to surgery, using electrical clippers or depilatory cream is safer than shaving. Shaving with a razor can lead to infection vulnerability.



Another help is treatment with a prophylactic antibiotic within one hour before surgery - earlier or later administration just simply isn’t as effective as an antibiotic administered at that hour mark. Discontinuing prophylactic antibiotics within 24 hours following surgery is also important. Keeping the antibiotic administration going for a longer period can increase side effects as well as the possibility of antibiotic resistance.

Patients should also be encouraged to wash their hands carefully, and remind doctors, nurses and other medical staff to do so. Skin around any intravenous catheter should be kept clean and dry, as should any dressings on a wound.  Asking friends and relatives not to visit if ill, is also key. While all of these aspects of infectious disease precautions are fairly simple, sometimes these are the techniques that work the best to inhibit disease spread and improve compliance.



There’s that word again, compliance. At MedTrainer, we’re here to help you comply with OSHA standards, with HAI prevention compliance, with all the rules and regulations that can seem onerous at times, but which are, in fact, ways to ensure a healthy, protected medical staff, as well as a health and protected patient.

In regard to HAI, signage is one crucial way to help with compliance and with heath. Signage that reminds workers to wash their hands for twenty seconds, and to use hand sanitizer really help. Placing soap dispensers next to the sink, and hand sanitizers in key locations such as bathrooms, hallways, and patient care facilities improves compliance greatly.

And what about the proper use of hand sanitizer? Is it enough to just use it? It needs to be used correctly. After all the CDC recommends using sanitizer for a full 30 seconds in order to disinfect hands. What, short of a stop watch, is going to help get that full thirty seconds in? Some dispensers now feature a flashing red light that stops only when thirty seconds is up.



MedTrainer can’t provide flashing lights, but we can provide the information about compliance issues such as these that helps to educate, inform, and instill techniques that can help greatly with HAI.

Speaking of hand washing and hand sanitization, even this process can lead to infection through occupational dermatitis, that can cause dry and cracked skin. Moisturizing cream helps.

Beyond hand cleanliness, another basic infection prevention process is cleaning of hospital rooms and examination rooms. Environmental cleanliness means physical cleaning plus disinfection. How to monitor this process? Again education and compliance techniques can help to prevent residual bacteria. Technology is also offering an assistance with super-oxidized water made of electrolyzed sodium hypochlorous acid, distributed through a wand spray device. Non-toxic, it leaves to residue and is non-corosive. When cultures have been taken to test the process on standard high-touch areas, residual bacteria present after standard cleaning dropped from an unpleasant 85% to 31% in HOCL treated areas. The treatment can also be used to prevent not just standard infections, but such severe infections as the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).



Once out of the medical care setting, of course, patients are still at risk from infections. Before going home, attention to detail about wound or incision site care is important, as is full understanding about to care for such a site at home. It’s still important at home to clean hands before and after caring for a wound. And it’s vital to know the signs of an infection at work, such as redness, pain, fever - all of which should be a signal to patients to call their doctor at once.