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Our guest this week on the Faculty Factory Podcast is Jeffrey Natterman, Esq. He joins us for a rich discussion about practical ways faculty can mitigate risk and their exposure to liability on the job.
With the Johns Hopkins Health System, Jeffrey Natterman, is the Chief Legal Counsel for Risk Management, Regulatory, Patient Care, and Ethics.
Like many things in our professional world, so much of limiting our exposure to liability comes back to communication.
“We do root cause analyses here to investigate adverse events, and hands down I would say likely 80 plus percent of the time communication is the number one issue,” he said.
Faculty should be aware that communication is not just important between healthcare providers and patients, it’s extremely important between colleagues as well.
Documentation as part of your communications in the workplace is another hugely vital aspect of risk mitigation.
“Communications by way of the written word is just as important as the verbal word,” Jeff said.
Policy development alone is simply not enough, as we learn from Jeff. We must be careful about what we put into standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Having a policy written down on paper is not enough to fully protect ourselves from liability. You also must make sure that those who are adhering to the policy understand it.
Policies cannot be ambiguous, too vague, and nuanced. Jeff told us that it is a major red flag if the people that are expected to follow a policy or procedure, come away with it with two or three different meanings.
As my grandpa used to tell me, “Sometimes common sense just isn’t so common.”
It is difficult to put into words just how valuable listening to this podcast might be for you. Like so many of our guests, Jeff is an absolute wealth of knowledge. Please make sure to listen to today’s episode through the embedded podcast player located above.