Textbook of Urgent Care Management: Chapter 39, Ensuring Patient Safety

By John Shufeldt

The Textbook of Urgent Care Management is now offering individual chapters for sale. The full book, provides an expert business consulting guide to potential or existing urgent care clinic owners, managers & operators as well as investors. Learn how to more effectively run your immediate care or walk-in center as well as start incorporating urgent care services into your existing primary care practice. The chapters cover valuable information from industry experts on how to start, manage, and even sell your urgent care center.

Chapter 39 includes:

Common Subtle Conditions Presenting in the Urgent Care Center
- Vital Signs
- Neurologic
- Chest
- Abdomen
- Genitourinary
- Other
- Take-Home Points

Informed Consent
- Patient Competency
- Disclosure of Appropriate Information
- Types of Informed Consent

Right to Refuse Care

Laboratory and Imaging Follow-Up or Missed Radiology Interpretations

Critical Care Events in the Urgent Care Center
- Front-Office Tasks
- Back-Office Tasks
- Health-Care Provider Tools
- Using Checklists and Care Paths
- Take-Home Points

Improving Patient Safety and Preventing Malpractice in Your Center
- Discharge Instructions
- Laboratory and X-Ray Results
- Radiology Overreads
- Service Recovery
- Informed Consent
- Care Paths
- Poor Hiring Practices
- Documentation
- Callbacks

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940288475

John Shufeldt

John Shufeldt is a serial student, an indefatigable change agent and a multidisciplinary entrepreneur who has studied the traits and qualities of extraordinary individuals for over three decades. In Ingredients of Outliers John guides us through a number of traits common to outliers and inspires us leave our comfort zones to join their ranks.John received his BA from Drake University in 1982 and his MD from the University of Health Sciences/ The Chicago Medical School in 1986. He completed his Emergency Medicine Residency at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in 1989 where he spent his final year as Chief Resident. John received his MBA in 1995, and his Juris Doctorate in 2005, both from Arizona State University. He is admitted to the State Bar in Arizona, the Federal District Court, and Supreme Court of the United States.He has started numerous health and non-health care businesses and continues to practice emergency medicine and law. He writes and lectures on a variety of subject matters to graduate medical, business and law students. He is an adjunct professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of law where he teaches a clinic on Health Law Entrepreneurism. He serves on the Drake University Board of Trustees and the Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law Alumni Board.You can find more information out about John and his work at www.ingredientsofoutliers.com

Book preview

CHAPTER 39

Ensuring Patient Safety

John Shufeldt

from

CHAPTER 39

Ensuring Patient Safety

John Shufeldt

IF ALL ELSE FAILS , patient safety needs to be the one constant—the one common denominator—by which the urgent care industry is recognized. Assuming this focus on patient safety is so important, the follow-up question we must therefore ask is whether we, as an industry, are spending enough time, money, and resources to ensure that we meet this objective.

First, we must recognize that urgent care medicine is by nature a high-risk undertaking. Generally, patients who present for services are generally not well suited to select the treatment modality or location most appropriate for their particular complaint, and thus many conditions and injuries exceed the level of service and care available at a particular facility. This is not to say that the provider cannot diagnose the condition and effectively treat the patient. Rather, it simply points to the need for the available resources, both human and equipment, that are necessary for the patient’s immediate and ongoing care.

Urgent care medicine is more challenging than emergency medicine because it is akin to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack, and because emergency department (ED) providers generally have access to the resources to diagnose and treat the patient, as well as access to consultants and ancillary staff members to whom they can turn for assistance.

Moreover, in the ED, emergency physicians and their teams are trained to think "worst