Hospitals must carefully plan for safety and minimize risks to maintain quality and compliance while reducing accidents, negative outcomes, and legal liabilities. Safety management programs help administrators and decision makers minimize environmental hazards, reduce occupational injuries, and prevent avoidable tragedies.
Safety Authority and Coordination
Most hospitals employ a safety officer, supervisor, or coordinator who is responsible for implementing safety activities and initiatives in compliance with established policies and regulations. These individuals should be empowered to take immediate action in situations that pose threats to life, health, property, and performance. This individual should collaboratively work with staff supervisors, departmental managers, and senior administrators to ensure compliance with safety standards and safe work practices. They usually submit quarterly reports to the hospital’s board of directors.
Safety Committees
No one individual can successfully run a safety program for a hospital by themselves. A safety or risk management committee will ideally be made up of multidisciplinary professionals who periodically meet to facilitate compliance, strategically plan, issue corrective actions and review building services. Their documentation, when combined with the paperwork of the safety officer, are the best preventative tools that preemptively resolve problems before they become legal nightmares and financial losses. This committee may help the safety officer monitor data, generate reports, inspect facilities, interview staff, and evaluate policy.
Internal Audits
All safety management policies should be reviewed annually. These formal evaluations will help review the current state of business objectives, organizational performance, employee engagement, and the safety plan’s scope. Internal audits are necessary to determine the timeliness and effectiveness of meeting identified community, institutional and health care consumer needs. They can be used to benchmark adherence to JCAHO standards and other regulatory requirements. Internal audits may be used to analyze resource utilization, improve leadership structure, and meet established performance standards.
Hospitals can better implement safety programs and understand organizational trends through professional building services and solutions. Contact us to learn more how to safely manage and maintain all your building’s systems, including staff training on understanding facility operations and more.
