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SAFE! … or Maybe Not?
Safety has been on my mind this week. It’s one of those concepts that, when related to patient advocacy and care management, can be applied in so many ways, with not so many easy answers. What kind of safety? Physical safety, of course. AND financial safety. Whose safety? Your clients’ safety, of course. AND yours. The questions aren’t so much about what is safe, or what isn’t. The questions are about judgment, timing, and consequences, and recognizing safety issues when the problems are obvious – vs – those times that are less obvious that we might miss all together – and what will happen if we aren’t paying attention. My safety consciousness was raised recently during a session with the Patient Advocate Certification Board, as we worked on questions for the upcoming exam. It was like one of those V-8 moments, as we all beaned our foreheads with the heels of our hands and said, “Wait! We haven’t included patient safety!” Yes – patient safety – among the LAST attributes we should ever skip for advocacy knowledge and action! Yet, as extremely important as it is, it had not been included in the list of competencies. We had missed it. (We corrected that missing piece immediately. See the PACB post on this topic.) But it got me thinking…. In what ways do we advocates need to be attentive to patient safety for our clients. And what might we be missing? And that got me thinking further…. In what ways do we advocates need to be cognizant of our own safety? And what might we be missing? Some safety “rules” are so “look both ways before you cross the street” that we hardly give them thought. Most smart advocates realize, for example, that they should never consider driving a client to an appointment. It’s potentially unsafe for the client (what if they fall? what if they slam a finger in the car door? what if you’re in an accident on the way?) It’s also unsafe for the advocate because if any of those things happen – that’s a lawsuit. Some safety…
