OVERVIEW

Our comprehensive approach helps an organization to detect, investigate, and remediate potential sentinel events and their root causes resulting in systemic, continuous improvement in quality and compliance. Provident’s Sentinel Event web-based Tool (“SET”), hosted by Provident, allows an organization to:

• Centrally collect key data metrics for identification of risk areas
• Report to key organization stakeholders through the web-based dashboard
• Confidentially store sentinel event related documentation
• Conduct internally consistent interviews
• Confidentially conduct any required peer review activities
• Provide expert witness/es secure access to key information necessary for the expert review
• Develop and track the progress of any action plan created
• Accumulate data for potential external reporting and training and education

A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH

Key components of our solution include:

Provident’s sentinel events approach allows an organization to detect, investigate, report and remediate potential sentinel events and their root causes.

Detection

• Development of general policies and procedures that include clear guidance and sentinel event examples
• Use of SET to capture key quality metrics
• Development of auditing and monitoring process within SET to identify key risk areas such as wrong patient, wrong, site, and wrong procedures or unintended retention foreign body

Internal Reporting

• Creation of a formal reporting process/dashboard within SET to keep key stakeholders apprised of sentinel events
• Recommendations for sentinel event “reporting tree” including but not limited to both the General Counsel and Corporate Compliance departments

Sentinel Event Investigation – RCA:
Using our SET investigation templates and checklists, conduct a non-biased review using a consistent approach customized to the potential sentinel event. SET provides a framework for conducting and confidentially storing the following:

• Document Review: any incident reports, written policies and procedures, any logs of providers on the floor/potentially involved in care
• Interviews: interviews with all healthcare providers potentially involved in the occurrence including supervisory personnel
• Clinical Record Review: review of medical record (paper and/or electronic) for standard of care and documentation of care provided
• Expert Review: expert review regarding the standard of care rendered, documentation of care rendered in the record and causation

In addition, SET can be tailored to include your organization’s peer review process providing you with the ability to conduct peer review and sentinel events investigation simultaneously. All data can be segregated as needed and kept confidential.

The overall objectives of the Provident RCA methodology are to focus on:

• Systems and processes – not individual performance
• “Why” – differentiating special v. common causes
• Identification of risk points within operational/clinical practices and their potential contributions to the type of event
• Changes that could be made in systems and processes (either through redesign or development of new systems or processes) that would reduce the risk of such events occurring the future

Tracking Tools – Action Plan
Based on the RCA, using our proprietary SET framework, develop a customized action plan addressing:

• Immediate and long-term action steps to reduce risk including rationale for non-action
• Parties responsible for implementing action steps
• Timelines including any pilot testing
• Measures for monitoring/evaluating the effectiveness of the action steps

Training and Education
Based on the RCA and Action Plan, Provident can assist the organization with:

• Development/revisions of policies and procedures
• Organization-wide training
• Clinician one-on-one and/or specialty-specific training based on RCA and clinical documentation review
• Enhancements to the organization Compliance Plan to include detection and remediation related to sentinel events

External Reporting
Provident can assist the organization with developing reporting tools and processes within SET consistent with federal, state, and industry regulations and guidance including but not limited to:

• Joint commission
• National Practitioner Data Bank

WHAT SETS US APART

• Implementation of a process that proactively identifies potential sentinel events
• Clear guidelines and reporting processes
• Tools for conducting internally consistent root cause analyses (“RCAs”)
• In-depth clinical documentation reviews
• Development/refinement of internal databases to contain quality data
• Follow-up training and education for mitigation and continuous improvement
• Key stakeholder communication allowing for internal enhancements, tracking and accountability

Provident’s depth of experience in healthcare operations, compliance, data analysis, and revenue cycle makes us uniquely qualified to provide valuable analysis and guidance.

Our team members have professional backgrounds working in provider organizations, law firms, and government agencies. We have unmatched knowledge of organizations across the healthcare spectrum, from single hospitals to healthcare systems, academic medical centers, and physician practices.