Serious Incidents and Sentinel Events in Home Care and Hospice

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Video Runtime: 32 Minutes; Learning Assessment Time: 29 Minutes

The key to improving the safety of home care and hospice patients is an effective sentinel event response policy. This course is designed to educate the participant in sentinel event identification and management. It will also review components of an effective policy. A case study representing the steps involved in managing a common sentinel event concludes the course, giving the participants the opportunity to operationalize the course content.

Meet your instructor

Georgia Hockenjos

Georgia Hockenjos, BSN, RN, is vice president and COO of Aleckna and Associates, Manalapan, New Jersey. Ms. Hockenjos has more than 40 years' experience in the home care industry, with more than 15 years in a management or director-level position at a large multibranch nonprofit home care agency (VNA) and 20 years as vice…

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Chapters & learning objectives

1. Sentinel Event Policy

In 1996, The Joint Committee for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (now known as the Joint Commission) established the first formal policy on managing sentinel events in health care, and this has evolved as a core component of the National Patient Safety Goals. This chapter utilizes this policy as a framework to introduce participants to the principles of sentinel event management, including definitions, reporting, and policy development.

2. Leading Sentinel Events and Causes in Home Care and Hospice

Understanding the potential causes of the most common sentinel events in home care and hospice makes preventing these events and developing organizational improvements possible. This chapter provides participants with information to better recognize causative behaviors in their organizations, offers strategies to improve these high-risk areas, and ultimately develops preventive strategies.

3. Identifying and Responding to a Sentinel Event

This chapter discusses the process used from the time a sentinel event is reported through the completion of follow-up activities. The steps of the process include identifying and reporting the sentinel event, completing the comprehensive systematic analyses, developing the corrective action plan, and completing follow-up activities.

4. Organizational Case Study

This chapter provides participants with the opportunity to operationalize the process and concepts discussed in the course by utilizing a step-by-step review of a common home health sentinel event: fire in the home. This sentinel event encompasses many aspects of home health care such as education, oxygen management, and home safety assessment.

More courses in this series

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Home Care and Hospice QAPI: Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

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