Never events are called such for very good reasons. They are medical occurrences that simply should not happen. When they do happen, especially in long-term and acute care facilities, they tend to be seen as signs of negligence or mismanagement of cases. These medical mishaps can have terrible impacts on patients, and they can also be rather damaging to facilities.
The lasting implications of never events on facilities can include such things as:
Financial burdens – Never events are no longer paid for by federally backed insurance companies. Many private insurers have also made the decision not to cover care related to never events. This doesn’t mean, however, that patients must foot the bills for care related to such things as elopement related injuries. The facilities that allow these events to take place are now responsible. The financial implications of caring for patients with serious illness or injury brought on by never events can be very high.
Legal implications – When never events happen and they are related to negligence, the legal implications can be paralyzing for facilities. Healthcare providers can find themselves paying out large amounts to cover such things as pain and suffering.
Reputation issues – Healthcare facilities that allow never events to take place sometimes also suffer problems with public relations. Extreme cases, for example, can end up in the news and damage the long-term reputation of a facility.
Regulatory issues – When facilities have problems with never events taking place, they open themselves up for more inspections and other issues with government agencies. This can make managing the day-to-day operations of a facility much more difficult.
Preventing never events is, first and foremost, vital to ensuring proper patient care. When they are allowed to happen, however, facilities often find themselves losing more than a few dollars for patient care. Preventing incidents is more than possible when healthcare providers arm themselves with the right tools and training and back these things up with diligence in patient care.
The prevailing thought is that pressure ulcers are preventable. Inasmuch, if they do occur, negligence is the cause.
To take a more proactive stand against pressure ulcers and protect patients and your facility in the process, it is very wise to:
Implement new procedures – Policy and procedure within a facility should clearly enforce a proactive stand on prevention. When the right steps are spelled out and they are enforced, changes on the staff level can reduce the incident rate of pressure ulcers.
Providing the right education – Staff members have to be educated to look for pressure ulcer risk signs and also in the right moves to prevent them. The proper training is vital.
Offering tools to help – Special mattresses, pads and cushions can help prevent pressure ulcers. Facilities should provide them for staff use in keeping patients pressure ulcer free.
Dealing withpressure ulcers is not something that should be done after the fact. It is a much better practice to go proactive.
