Understanding Risk Management in Home Care

Home care agencies are vulnerable to clinical errors, regulatory non-compliance, worker safety issues, and more. In particular, you should be developing risk management plans for:

Clinical Risks

Medication errors, misdiagnoses, infection control, patient falls and other injuries: these can have a devastating impact on patient safety. 

Workplace Safety Risks

It's not just your patients who might be at risk. Your caregivers deserve to be safe at work, which means you need to plan for patient violence and harassment, caregiver stress and anxiety, and caregiving injuries. 

Legal and Regulatory Risks

Between HIPAA, HITECH, the 21st Century Cures Act, and OSHA, regulatory compliance can be complex.

Operational Risks

Staffing shortages, technology issues, scheduling clashes, and poor cash flow can interrupt service delivery and damage your profit margins.

The Keys to Successful Risk Management

A well-developed risk management plan will reduce the likelihood of something going wrong, minimize its impact if it does occur, and help you respond efficiently and effectively.

When building your risk management plan, make sure to:

1. Break down the patient care journey, your caregivers' shifts, and your company's processes step by step. Where can you identify risk?

2. Examine each potential risk. What factors exacerbate it? What steps can you take to remove or reduce the risk?

3. If a risk occurs, what can you do to address it? How can you both minimize the immediate impact and resolve the issue? Create a response plan, complete with the people responsible for taking these steps and the timeframe for putting them into action.

4. Share your plan with your staff, train them on it, and keep training materials somewhere that’s easily accessible.

5. Schedule periodic risk management plan reviews and updates.

Depending on the complexity and size of your business, you might benefit from working with a risk management consultant for this process.

How Automating Your Risk Management Can Make It Even More Effective

You might think that risk management is too important to do on autopilot. But that's exactly why you should automate as much of it as possible. Automated processes reduce human error and help create an accurate record.

Let's take an example. Your patient, Lucía, requires daily insulin shots. In addition to being diabetic, Lucía has Alzheimer's, which means she doesn't always remember if she's had her injections.

In a manual risk management system, the home health aide would discover this information in Lucía’s care plan, administer the insulin shot, and then record it in her care record. If they overlooked this information or forgot to record it, Lucía could receive the wrong amount of insulin.

With an automated system, however, you can create custom nursing note templates, complete with a checklist for your team to tick off. Lucía's caregiver won't be able to submit their progress note without viewing that checklist. By adding Lucía's insulin injection to the checklist, you can prompt the caregiver to administer the shot and then record it. 

The likelihood of your staff forgetting is almost impossible — which means that Lucía will receive the right amount of insulin and you'll have a better record of the care provided. As a bonus, you've made your caregiver's job easier for them.

Automating Your Risk Management in 4 Steps

These practical steps will help you significantly reduce risk.

#1 Document Access and Sharing

Your caregivers need access to detailed patient information to better understand a client's health and well-being, provide personalized care, and make appropriate medical decisions. If your team doesn’t have enough information, your clients’ safety will be at risk. However, if you share too much information with the wrong caregiver, it could lead to a HIPAA violation.

Look for care management software that shares the relevant client data with scheduled caregivers. This will help you automate document access. Make sure the software is HIPAA-compliant, so that not even your admin staff or the home care software providers have inappropriate access to patient records.

#2 Document Expiry Notifications

Whether it’s your caregivers' nursing licenses or your clients' care plans, expired documentation presents a major compliance risk for home health agencies. The best home care software will allow you to set document expiry notifications so you have plenty of warning.

#3 Client Record Templates

Well-written care notes are key to providing quality care. They create a legal record that proves you’re providing the contracted services. They help you track changes in the client’s health and well-being over time. And, they ensure your caregivers have the information they need to make the most appropriate care decisions.

However, time-pressed caregivers can rush client records, leading to missing information and even errors. To avoid this, use your home health care software to create progress note templates and checklists for individual clients.

#4 Scheduling

By automating your schedules, you can reduce the risk of no-shows and ensure that your clients receive all the care they’re entitled to. Use your home care scheduling software to confirm caregiver availability and set up group and recurring shifts. Create approved caregiver lists for individual clients and use an in-app job board so that you can automate the process of finding shift cover.

Reduce Risk and Boost Care Quality

ShiftCare's home health care software helps keep your business running smoothly. It automates every stage from client onboarding to scheduling and billing. And with electronic visit verification, compliance reports, client record templates, document expiry notifications, and a HIPAA-compliant document management system, you'll be able to reduce risk significantly.

Discover how the right tools can help you improve patient safety. Try ShiftCare for free.