Lisa Taylor on Protecting Staff When There are Violent or Harassing Patients [Podcast]

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Post By: Adam Turteltaub

A violent or potentially violent patient appears in the Emergency Room. As Lisa A. Taylor, Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer at UC Health in Cincinnati shares in this podcast, it can be quite a challenge from a compliance perspective.

On the one hand there is a clear responsibility to have a culture of safety and responsibility to ensure that staff and patients are protected. That’s even more important these days with a pandemic swirling.

On the other hand, the EMTALA rules require that patients be treated.

To manage this challenge, she advises starting long before an incident occurs. Talk to and involve all the functions that are likely affected including care providers, security, police, risk management, social work, legal, leadership, HR and even the accreditation team. Next put together a plan of how incidents will be handled, including a code that will alert appropriate personnel to a potentially violent episode.

Then use each incident as a learning opportunity. Debrief with the team to determine what worked, what didn’t and where improvements can be made.

Listen in to learn more about this very difficult compliance challenge.

1 COMMENT

  1. re: your podcast about safety for medical personnel and patient and all concerned, it seems to me that if someone is able to speak coherently, they have a right to refuse treatment, and in exercising that right, that absolves medical staff from any law about being required to treat.

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