Unforeseen Risks of Poor Doc. Quality: A Quality Benchmark Project Study

Introduction

A quality benchmark project is an important aspect that compares similar entities' activities, and lessons are applied to the enterprise conducting the project. Therefore, it is essential to undertake such a project to prevent unforeseen risks from other identical entities. This research paper explores how poor documentation quality in some hospitals can be used by other medical centers for reference. The effects that are from this malpractice affect financial strength, Human Resource Management, and prevent researchers' activities. The quality of poor documentation is discussed in the field of medical practices.

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Poor Financial Management

Poor documentation in hospitals makes the services offered to clients or patients to be ineffective. According to research done by Adio & Adeojo (2019), the consequence of this leads to inaccurate billing and inappropriate filling of claims. From the study, the loss of a discharge summary prepared by a physician is an ideal example that arises from such practices. As a result, cost-effectiveness is not achieved, making other financial partnerships like health insurance companies compensate wrong payments of the patient holding the insurance policy, causing fraudulent insurance cover( Brumley, 2019). Moreover, this may increase the hospitals' operational costs, which may arise from lawsuits from these insurance companies. However, tremendous changes have taken place, as the incorporation of electronic medical records such as CDI (clinical documentation improvements) and Medicare's coding system, which has enabled billing and remedy to reimbursement solutions.

Ineffective Human Resource Practices

One of the significant sources of income in health facilities is the recruitment, hiring, and retention of medical practitioners, where this practice supports a hospital's brand. Poor documentation results in poor management in the Human Resource department; this makes it challenging to manage work in all departments that result in poor scheduling of working shifts, wrongful specializations, and inferior appraisal methods. These results lead to poor quality of the services offered to patients. Hospital costs can be increased by poor execution of surgical quality performance, increasing any associated fees that reduce the medical center's profit margin. This can be improved by redefining professional standards in the workplace, which advocates brokering knowledge from middle-level managers in hospitals, thus, improving Human Resource operations.

Limitation of Research Projects

Inadequate information that is caused by poor record-keeping in hospitals causes researching problems in the medical field. One role of these researchers, according to an article by Boccuti & Casillas (2015), includes imposing of penalty to hospitals for multiple readmissions of patients within 30 days. When records are not readily available, hospitals' regulations are made difficult, hence increasing costs for obtaining information. In a teaching and referral hospital, medical students are not able to access some useful information that can be useful in their studies, limiting access to funds in these Medicare centers sourced from the higher learning institution. Also, poor documentation makes it hard for referring patients to other medical facilities; this limits researchers' efforts to analyze any emergence of new diseases.

References

Adio, R. A., & Adeojo, M. B. (2019). Poor Documentation and Absence of Discharged Summaries: Causes, Implications and Mitigation. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2887/

Boccuti, C., & Casillas, G. (2015). Aiming for fewer hospital U-turns: the Medicare hospital readmission reduction program. Policy Brief. http://slcsuperiorhomecare.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kaiser-Readmission-paper.pdf

Brumley, S. (2019) Role of Financial Management in Health Care [PDF]. Retrieved from: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/role-financial-management-health-care-76263.html