Calling all Joint Commission accredited hospitals!
We’re looking to connect with a few Joint Commission accredited hospitals to get a better feel for the healthcare policy management space. No sales pitch, we promise!
If you work in a Joint Commission hospital and can spare 2-3 minutes of your time, please contact me at daisy@policymedical.com, or respond in the comments area. You’ll have my eternal gratitude.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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CAP requires us to keep expired documents!
To become CAP accredited, you are required to keep expired documents. If your hospital currently doesn’t have a consistent procedure for doing this, you can easily use PolicyManager™ to do so. Our policy management software has the capabilities of storing expired documents. An example of best practices for organizing your documents is shown below:
In this screenshot, you can see documents organized by department, and then organized by type of document (eg. policies, procedures, forms, etc). There is an “Obsolete Documents” folder in every department folder. When any document is updated, older versions of that document can easily be filed into the “Obsolete Documents” folder with the click of a button. The date that you filed documents away into the “Obsolete Documents” is automatically recorded, so there will never be any ambiguity as to when each version came into effect.
When you click into the most current version of that document, it shows you all the previous versions of the document that are now obsolete. PolicyManager™ makes it easy to ensure that expired documents are easy to display for CAP surveys.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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National Health IT Week
September 12-16th is National Health IT Week!
We join healthcare organizations across the United States in celebrating how technology has transformed health care. We renew our commitment to build great healthcare technologies by continuing to develop systems that are easy to use, secure, affordable, and tailored to your needs.
How are you celebrating National Health IT Week?
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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About PolicyMedical:
PolicyMedical is the leading provider of policy management software for hospitals. At PolicyMedical, we believe that most processes in hospital document management can be automated, and we’ve developed our policy management software, PolicyManager™, with that in mind. PolicyManager™ is used by thousands of hospitals all over the world and has been helping hospitals improve their policy management processes and automation for a decade.
To learn more about PolicyMedical and PolicyManager™, contact Joseph Garcia at 1-888-607-6331 x700.
Does PolicyManager have a termination clause?
A few months ago, I got a call from my bank during the middle of the work day. The representative was harping about an amazing service they were offering for free, and she convinced me to give it a try. After all, it’s free! I have nothing to lose!
I was in a hurry to get rid of her so I could get back to work, so I thought, why not!
Months later, I realized that every month, there was a nominal amount charged onto my credit card from an unknown source. I traced it down and found out that it was that “free service” that I had signed on for. Apparently, only the first month was free and I was getting charged for it thereafter. And of course, the service does not terminate unless I call them to request it.
I’m sure you’ve experienced something similar before. As consumers, we’re primed to companies ripping us off, so I don’t blame you for being on your guard.
The good folks here at PolicyMedical hate it just as much as you do. That’s why we would never spring any hidden costs on you. No contracts. No additional charges for support. No termination clauses. What you see is what you get. When you sign on as our client, you’re free to switch vendors whenever you want.
We’re confident you won’t want to though.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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How to move paper policies into PolicyManager™
The process of moving your paper policies into an online policy management system isn’t easy. Here’s a breakdown of how to do it.
Step 1: Scan policies into PDF format
The first step is scanning the paper policies into a computerized format. Most scanners will scan documents into either JPG or PDF format. This is the most tedious task in the process, and is, unfortunately, unavoidable.
Step 2: Upload PDFs into PolicyManager™
The next step is uploading the PDFs into the PolicyManager™ system. PolicyManager™ has a mass upload feature that allows you to upload policy folders all in one go.
Step 3: Convert to a Word file (DOC) upon next revision
Since there’s no easy way to edit a PDF file, you’ll need convert it into a Word file eventually. The best way to do this is to get the policy author to re-type the policies into Word the next time it’s up for revision. This way, the author can make changes to the policy as needed, while converting the file format at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
The process can be a bit tedious, and the time and energy invested in setting up the database initially can be quite intensive. But it’ll be all worth it once the system is up and running and you can enjoy the features and benefits of a dedicated policy management software.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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How To Number Your Policies
We get a lot of questions about policy numbering best practices. Based on what we’ve seen from clients, there are two types of numbering conventions that seem to work well.
1. Numbering by Department
For example:
Nursing = NUR-12345 or N001
Human Resources = HR-12345 or HR001
Laboratory = LAB-12345 or LAB001
2. Numbering by Health System Site
For example:
Corporate = 1.001
Hospital Facility #1 = 2.001
Hospital Facility #2 = 3.001
Please share if your hospital has its own policy numbering convention that works well.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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Our policy management system, PolicyManager™, like most solutions, offer the option of hosting the system on our own secure data center (SAS 70 compliant) or installing locally in your hospital’s servers.
There are benefits of either solutions, and you can decide which ones are most important to you:
1. Hosted install benefits:
- Available anytime online
- Server maintenance by PolicyMedical
- Instantaneous upgrades/updates/patches
- Secure Site Access (SSL)
- 99.9% server up-time
2. Local install benefits:
- Full control from your internal IT staff
Discuss both options thoroughly with your IT staff. From our experience, about 70% of our clients go with hosted installations, and an even greater percentage of our more recent clients are choosing hosted.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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Policy Management Roles in Your Hospital
Sometimes, there’s confusion as to who should take on certain roles in the policy management process. Often, there isn’t an assigned personnel to handle a hospital’s policies, so hospital execs undergo a haphazard process to find the right person (or people).
Who should you find to fill certain roles in the policy management process?
1. Authors
Role: write policies and procedures.
Who should fill this role: Admin Assistants, Managers, Directors
2. Reviewers
Role: edit and review policies whenever they need a updating
Who should fill this role: Managers, Directors
3. Approvers
Role: sign off on a policy after every revision, before the policy goes live.
Who should fill this role: Directors, Executive Board
4. System Administrators
Role: control the policy management system that you use. These people add users to the system, establishes user permissions, restricts user access, etc.
Who should fill this role: IT, Compliance, Quality, Risk Management and/or Legal
If there are any questions about role assignment to your policy management system, feel free to post a question.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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Buy or build your policy management system?
For hospitals thinking about whether to build a policy management system in-house or to buy from a vendor, industry expert, Michael Rasmussen, has written a great article covering the issues. He’s covered all the bases in terms of considerations you should take to evaluate which solution is appropriate for you and your hospital.
Some specific features to consider when building your own policy management solution:
- The desirability of a consistent platform for the entire enterprise instead of each department implementing their own policy portal.
- The ability for the platform to manage the lifecycle of policies through creation, communication, assessment/monitoring, tracking, maintenance/revising, to archiving and record keeping.
- The ability to restrict who can read what documents, and who has the permission to edit, review, and approve.
To read the full article, go to the Corporate Integrity blog.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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Download the PolicyManager™ 5.0 PDF
To make it easier to introduce the new features of PolicyManager™ 5.0 to your staff, here is the link to a PDF download:
PolicyManager™ 5.0 New Features
If the link doesn’t work for you, you can also find it in our box of downloads in the right-panel of the blog. The file name is “PolicyMedical introduces New PolicyManager™ 5.0 Features“.
Cheers,
Daisy Jiang | Marketing Specialist | PolicyMedical™
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Subscribe to this blog via e-mail from the right panel, or click here to subscribe to free RSS updates so that you do not miss out anything that can be valuable to you and your hospital!
Also, we would love it if you would rate this product feature and leave a comment below.
