Hcs 320 - Health Care Communication Methods

Health Care Communication Methods

Health Care Communication Strategies/HCS/320

Jun, 2015

To successfully manage a nursing home, a lot of time is spent on the well-being of the facilities residents and employees, along with the future of the organization. Recently, a development regarding a nursing facility being bought out by a large national group has brought up some concerns and challenges with this process; such as the requirement to relocate a number of their patients to safe and clean housing. With the new purchase transitions, new policies have taken effect, which is leaving some of the residents displaced and with no nearby relatives to assist them with this transition.

As a responsible administrator for the facility, one must abide by the state and federal regulations and laws while still pursuing quality alternative measures for these individuals in need of transferring. In addition to the lack of housing resources for skilled patient care, these patients possess an inability to communicate effectively; therefore, are unable to give the appropriate authorization needed for release of medical records and permission of transfer. This calls for additional work for the administrator in the process of obtaining the proper documentation required.

Administrations are responsible for developing a plan that follows HIPAA regulations to attain the resident’s authorization to release records. To begin, one can attempt to establish communication with relatives listed in the charts to inform the family of the situation. (Du Pré, A. (2005).) Developing an acceptable plan to relocate these individuals will consist of contacting relatives who live some distance from the current nursing home location.

This will be done by phone calls, sending emails, and written letters to those relatives within the patient’s records. Once staff connects with the patient’s family has been established, determining if any of the relative’s listed on the patient’s records hold a power of attorney to authorize the release of medical records. If there is no possession of power of attorney, staff should advise the family member of the requirements regarding completing and signing medical form releases; which would be, locating a public notary to stamp the document for legal documentation. Once this has been completed, the original document must be returned to the nursing home for future placement of the patient. This will enable the nursing home to successfully and legally release the medical records to another quality facility as a patient referral.

In any critical situation social media plays a noteworthy part in communication. Being able to locate new facilities that would provide proper placement for patients could take weeks or even months in previous years. With the internet in today’s society, the searching process has