Events & Resources

In the world of healthcare compliance, the HHS Office of Inspector General OIG plays an important and determinative role. The OIG discussed new compliance directions at the HCCA conference.

Federal and state governments continue their close scrutiny of the Continuum care/post-acute sector. Here we discuss compliance risk areas and CIA in this part of the healthcare industry.

Where healthcare compliance professionals spend their time is changing as accrediting bodies and regulators find new areas that merit investigation. This blog post comes from our Part 2 round-up of important topics covered at the HCCA 2018 Enforcement Conference.

The regulatory burden faced by organizations across the healthcare continuum is significant in terms of the time and resources involved in meeting its requirements. $39 billion is the annual cost to healthcare providers to comply with the administrative aspects of regulatory compliance.

Providers’ success at providing quality care is at risk when healthcare organizations are challenged by compliance. These 15 HealthStream blog posts from 2017 demonstrate our commitment to solutions focused on improving compliance.

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

Do you use a paper-based system for Competency and Performance Management? What if you were asked to provide a report to assess the competency of the entire organization on a skill such as blood transfusion? How long would that take you? What if your manager asks you to identify only employees who ‘Did Not Meet Expectations’ for this competency? Even worse, what if she asks “How does this compare to last year?’

An interview with Lee Ann Hanna, Director of Education, TriStar Centennial Medical Center (HCA), Nashville, Tennessee

With the publication in 2014 of the CMS “Open Payments” database, which makes all payments to physicians from Pharmaceutical and Medical Device companies available in a searchable database, conflicts of interest has become a hot-button issue in healthcare.

With so much negative press coming out daily about compliance and so many sweeping changes being enacted in the human resources realm, especially in healthcare, there is no better time to make sure that your organization is in order.

CMS expects HealthStream and healthcare facilities to fully comply with all of the official protocols for each CAHPS survey. This is especially complicated because the rules are not consistent between programs.

The hospice industry has been subject to increasing regulation by governmental and accrediting entities. To stay up-to-date in this rapidly changing environment—and to continue to provide effective interventions for patients nearing the end of life—continuing education is a must.

A CIA requires significant attention, data collection, legal defense, negotiation, new systems, new policies, oversight, and enforcement, possibly for many years. Healthcare facilities of all types, including hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, long-term care, physician groups, and more have all seen increases in CIAs. Yet, these organizations often struggle with what to do if a recipient of one.

In healthcare settings, the impetus to use social media is no different than in any other industry. When used correctly, it is an excellent tool that can increase awareness of hospital services, create a two-way dialogue with patients, families, and the community, and improve the patient experience. At the same time, we are all aware of stories about the misuse of social media in the workplace

One of the challenges that governmental and institutional authorities face in evaluating the efficacy and cost effectiveness of therapeutics is determining who to rely on for technical and scientific support. On one hand, who better to explain the relative advantages of a new product than the inventor of a device, or the researcher who has overseen the development of a new and promising drug? On the other hand, who could be more invested in a favorable determination on safety and effectiveness?

The healthcare industry has passed the “if” stage of cyber-attacks and is now asking “when.” And, it’s no surprise cyber criminals have adjusted their targets. With patient records fetching 50 times more money on the black market than financial data and only 33% of healthcare facilities reporting their current cyber security posture as “very effective,” hackers have all the incentives in the world to breach your cyber defenses and steal patient data.

Can you confidently say that your training initiatives are effective, that your employees are well trained, and that patients are safe? Do you have reliable data that allows you to strategically deploy training and manage your training costs? Are you prepared for your next audit? KnowledgeQ® is HealthStream’s answer to the healthcare industry’s demand for a strategic approach to annual mandatory training. The stakes are too high to continue a “check-the-box” exercise that offers almost no visibility into the cost of delivering training and whether expenditures could be eliminated or redirected to more effective initiatives.

In today’s NFL not much is private. On any given Sunday, viewers are inundated with information about players’ personal and professional lives. One of the few stones left unturned when it comes to privacy are players’ medical records. For all their fame and fortune, when it comes to HIPAA, they are covered just like the rest of us. So when a report recently surfaced that a laptop containing medical records of thousands of players had been stolen from a Washington Redskins staff member, two relatively unrelated industries, healthcare and sports, made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Last month we looked at the growing problem of ransomware and the potentially devastating impact it can have on systems, patient information and the entire operations of your facility. Ransomware is just one of many security issues that every facility needs to be concerned with and take steps to prevent. The list of security concerns includes physical security, social engineering, phishing, social media, mobile devices, access to patient records, malicious software and more.

Imagine you come into work one morning and the entire computer network is shut down and all files are inaccessible! That’s what happened to a friend of mine who owns a business in New Jersey. On their network were two letters from hackers that had hacked into their computer system overnight – one that contained a link where they could get their ENCRYPTED files and network back and another that told them how to get the special software key needed to decrypt those files.