How to Protect Personnel and Policies in an Era of Liability

In 2020, the realm of modern healthcare entered uncharted territory. The COVID-19 pandemic has forever altered the way personnel must record, manage, and share information. 

Now, medical facilities are under intense scrutiny, required by regulatory bodies to be as transparent as possible about every facet of their business, with special emphasis placed on ethical and legal mandates. 

In response, employees are understandably concerned about the increased degree of liability they’re required to shoulder in their area of practice. 

Safeguarding your personnel and policies can keep productivity high and morale in check, even as your office navigates these increasing pressures. It can also protect your business from the threat of litigation and reduce unnecessary business stress. 

Today, we’re sharing employment best practices that can help you defend your healthcare business against claims while keeping your workforce happy, safe, and engaged. 

Review Your Policies and Practices

In light of new employment laws, it’s smart to check your current office practices against the most recent legislation. 

Are all of your policies up-to-date and compliant with the laws in your state? What about your recordkeeping and reporting procedures? A knowledgeable, trained HR professional is invaluable in helping your company understand all of these nuances and ensuring against non-compliance citations. 

Once you’ve established sound guidelines, it’s important to post them in a place where they’re accessible to all employees, at any time. Our Drive tool allows you to attach how-to guides and instructions to any task, checklist, or form. This makes the onboarding process faster and ensures all team members have access to the information they need in the palm of their hand.

Monitor COVID-19 Guidelines

As a healthcare employer, you’ll need to pay close attention to the most recent standards dictating how you can administer COVID-19-related leave and paid time off. 

Legislation such as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires some employers to provide employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for health concerns related to COVID-19. 

If you aren’t familiar with these guidelines, you could inadvertently deny those benefits to team members who qualify for them. This can open your business up to financial risks, including costly litigation. Familiarize your office staff with those policies and make sure they’re referencing the most recent information. 

Communicate Health and Safety Policies 

Your personnel should clearly understand what policies are in place at your office, and how to leverage those rights if required. 

Talk to your employees about the steps you’re taking to protect them. In addition, explain what obligations they have to their co-workers. This step is especially important in regard to health and safety initiatives. 

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has strict reporting requirements and can enforce penalties on companies found in non-compliance with certain safety measures, including COVID-19 sanitation procedures. 

Listen to employee concerns and share the measures you’ve put in place to stay compliant with industry requirements while protecting their health and wellbeing. 

Conduct Routine Training

Once you’ve put steps in place to protect your company against citations, conduct training to make sure everyone is aware of the changes and how they will affect their jobs. 

With our Custom Form tool, you can turn any document into a checklist, training module, or assessment. This allows you to create custom sessions that cater to your specific business and the unique tasks you complete every day. 

In addition to training new hires, you also need a refresher training policy in place to ensure that all employees can stay up-to-date on the latest procedures and best practices. As you conduct each session, maintain detailed records on the number of employees that attended, the material covered, and any follow-up actions that occurred. 

Promptly Investigate Claims or Problems

Even with a rigorous recordkeeping practice in place, you may still encounter issues of non-compliance or blatant deviation. If this happens, it’s important to act immediately.

Investigate all problems as soon as they arise, and correct anyone who has purposefully or inadvertently acted outside of the posted employment policies. These corrective measures should be thoughtful, consistent, and well-documented. 

Often, these issues arise from miscommunication or a lack thereof. Keep an open-door policy and encourage your team members to speak up when they have a concern. Often, this can help keep the issue from progressing into an external claim. It’s especially important to establish a clear communication strategy when all or a portion of your workforce is remote or working in a hybrid environment, where opportunities for face-to-face meetings aren’t as frequent. 

Track and Record Compliance Progress

In the fast pace of everyday work, it can be easy to lose track of how well your workforce is complying with office-specific and industry-wide regulations. 

It can help to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track your progress and identify any weak areas. A KPI is a metric that allows you to gauge how close you are to achieving the goals you set for your company, and what you need to do to move closer to success. 

Our Flexible Reporting tool makes it easy to create, compile, and share this data among your office staff. You’ll see your KPIs as soon as you log in, without crunching any numbers or running extensive spreadsheets. 

In the short term, this tool helps you monitor task completion, as well as the responsible personnel and their associated location. Looking further down the road, it also allows you to track trends over time, so you know which areas you need to fortify to maintain your compliance standards. 

Data Management Eases Liability Concerns

The healthcare realm is under the spotlight, and the scrutiny doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon. Now more than ever, your teams need access to data that clearly explains what they need to do and how to do it.

As a leader in this space, you need the ability to track compliance efforts in real-time, leveraging tools that improve communication, facilitate teamwork, and simplify data sharing. XenonChex automates and facilitates task-based management, making it easier to put your policies into practice. 

Learn more about our platform and take those next steps in confidence. 

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