Children's Hospitals Today - Winter 2018 - 26

FEATURE / SAFETY

BY THE NUMBERS

Workers' compensation claim expenditures

The effect on safety

The hotline helps the organization be proactive in mitigating
Total Spend
External Medical Care
Lost Time
risk while improving employee
$45
compliance with policies. The
$40
program's ability to influence outcomes and promote a safety cul$35
ture relies on strong participation
$30
by all medical center personnel.
$25
Although the number of safety
$20
reports has increased since 2008,
the rate of serious safety events
$15
for patients and OSHA-reportable
$10
incidents has declined in frequen$5
cy and month-to-month variability during this time. The hotline
$0
has demonstrated that increased
reporting and participation has
not resulted in an increase in serious safety events.
When it comes to financial effects, the organization consafety threats. The safety hotline specialists work closely
tinues to observe annual declines in workers' compensation
with key partners, such as protective services, facilities,
claim spending, severity (spending per claim) and lost producinfection control, research and risk management to identivity across the medical center. Hotline specialists provide
tify and respond to active situations as needed. Real-time
first aid advice to injured employees, and they help facilitate
incident notifications are sent via email, text or phone call
medical attention when needed using evidence-based prototo ensure stakeholders are aware of situations as employees
cols. While encounters with the hotline increased between
are reporting them. The majority of situations require the
2012 and 2016, total workers' compensation claim spending
specialists to follow up, whether to check in on a situation
declined an average of 20 percent per year on average.
or employee, or notify key partners of a safety concern that
Additionally, the Ohio Hospital Association's most recent
requires their attention.
independent benchmarking study conducted in 2014 demonSafety hotline specialists are trained to respond to a distrated Cincinnati Children's workers' compensation claim
verse range of issues by adapting a standardized call flow for
frequency (claims per 100 FTEs) and claim severity were the
each encounter. They must maintain a broad understanding
lowest among 82 participating hospitals regardless of hospital
of the institution and strong critical thinking skills. Also,
size-this is five to seven times lower than aggregate mean
timely, accurate and consistent documentation is critical for
over a five-year period. This study concluded that Cincinnati
effective communication and situational awareness among
Children's program demonstrated $11 million dollars in cost
stakeholders who routinely use the data to support improveavoidance compared to the expected aggregate mean over the
ment initiatives, root cause analysis, regulatory compliance
five-year period evaluated.
and a variety of related programs.

Average Cost per Covered Head

Since 2002, the hospital's average cost per covered head has decreased.

How it works
Here's the flow of a case
through the hotline system.

Nurse or EMT
answers, employee
relates the issue

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL S TODAY Winter 2018

Nurse/EMT assesses risk,
mitigates ongoing safety
threat, responds to active
situation as needed

Nurse/EMT notifies key
stakeholders of event

Nurse/EMT follows up
and reassesses status
of situation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Children's Hospitals Today - Winter 2018