Business are Victims of Economic Crime and Fraud

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Jean Eaton in Blog

March is Fraud Prevention Month

40% of Canadian organizations reported that they were victims of fraud in the last two years. This includes asset mis-appropriation, procurement, and cyber fraud, as reported on CanadaAM on March 9, 2016 interview with Lori-Ann Beausoleil, PWC Canada.

Ophthalmology Business article, ‘6 Ways To Curb Employee Theft‘ includes tips that physicians and administrators can do to curb the risk of theft.

Vet your employees
Track inventory
Let employees know that you are concerned about fraud
Separate financial-related duties
Out of sight, out of mind
Use electronic health records (EHR) to your advantage

Read ‘6 Ways To Curb Employee Theft‘ to see all the suggestions by Jean L. Eaton, Steve Dawson, Jodie Boxe in this article by Vanessa Caceres.

For more suggestions on how to manage risks especially when your staff work alone, see my interview with Dave Rodwell, ‘Do Your Staff Work Alone?'

There are many things that you can do to prevent fraud in your healthcare practice. Being aware of the risk is your first step.

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Do your staff work alone?

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Jean Eaton in Blog

In our Practice Management Nugget series, on July 31, 2014,we spoke with Dave Rodwell of D.E. Rodwell Investigative Services Ltd. on “Corporate Security – A Must for Any Organization”. Here are a few security tips for your healthcare practice.

What is the most devastating thing that could happen to your business?

Your employee is physically assaulted on the job by a stranger. A car drives through your office window. A shouting match between a patient and your employee. Internal theft of your cash box. Identifying those devastating events is the first step to prevent those events and to prepare your incident plan. Then,

Document the plan
Share the plan with your staff
Practice the plan

This will help your organization to prevent incidents that could impact your business.

“Cash is a tempting target for an employee who is having financial difficulties.” Dave Rodwell

We want to be able to trust the people that we work with. We try to hire good people, but circumstances change and a plain unlocked cash box that everyone uses is a tempting target. You should have written procedures in place to limit the amount of cash in the office and controls in place to make the cash less tempting to steal.

20% of the general population will never steal under any circumstance

60% of the general population may be tempted to steal if there is an opportunity and that there is a reasonable chance that they won’t get caught

20% of the general population will steal whenever they have an opportunity

Incident management and internal investigation

Every organization should have a crisis response checklist including a plan to conduct an internal investigation of an incident. This includes creating an objective report that can be presented to senior management, who makes a decision on how to respond to the incident. The investigator – internal or external to the business – needs to be perceived as objective, fair, and thorough so that the decision made by senior management is respected.

Do your staff work alone?

You might have an employee who works alone for part of their shift in your practice. Maybe employees work at the same time but at opposite ends of the office.

If an employee cannot be seen or heard by co-workers who can offer assistance, they are considered ‘working alone’.

The employer is required to conduct a hazard assessment and must establish an effective strategy to reduce the risk of harm. Most provinces have legislation that requires a business to conduct a ‘work alone assessment’. The assessment includes:

Identify individuals who work alone
Identify risks to individuals work alone
Identify reasonable risk mitigation strategies to prevent harm to employees
Provide training to the employee that safeguards the employee (make sure you document the training!)

We want to keep our employees safe from harm and are willing to take reasonable steps to protect and train the employees. If you don’t take steps to meet work alone legislative requirements and an incident occurs it could impact your insurance coverage. An investigation into the incident could find that your business ‘operated contrary to the laws of the land’ and your insurance coverage may be null and void.

Working Alone Safely handbook is available from Government of Alberta to help businesses implement work alone strategies.

Employers and employees have a responsibility to ensure a safe workplace. Get started on your incident plan by taking a risk survey. Then select one or two risk areas that you can quickly and easily prevent and develop your incident response plan.

The replay of this interview is now available as a member benefit. Try out a Trial Membership to Information Managers Network to access this Practice Management Nugget interview and other webinar replays and resources. And if you’re already a member, just log-in and enjoy!

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Sponsors

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Jean Eaton in Blog

We’re tickled pink that these fine partners are Sponsors of the 15 Day Privacy Challenge!

Group of Rogues

The Group of Rogues is an Edmonton based company, who specialize in Marketing and Advertising strategies.

“Customers make decisions about buying your product based on their needs, not yours. With a customized team of elite creative and strategic minds, we learn who your customers are, what they want and how you can solve their problems. Then we develop campaigns with the right tools to be where your customers are when they need what you have to offer.

We help you create smart, meaningful marketing that resonates with your customers.”

Check out their website here!

Grant Ainsley has become one of Canada’s most popular media trainers. He works with CEO’s, politicians, association leaders and others to refine their messages when they speak with the media. He also speaks and conducts training locally and at conferences across the country about media relations, crisis communications and social media. Grant Ainsley is the author of The Honest Spin Doctor: Navigating the Media Maze

Check out his website here!

ITPG is a Global Leader in Providing Professional Education, training, delivery fulfilment and IT professional services. They provide association management; awareness, training, and education curriculum development and delivery; certificate and certification program optimization; and event management expertise. One area of specialty is Cyber Security Services.

“The SCIPP EUSA Certificate Program provides end-users with the world’s most up-to-date, internationally-recognized, effective, and efficient security awareness program for end-users of organizational enterprise networks.”

Check out their website here!

Nelson Scott

Through his writing and presentations, Nelson Scott provides managers, supervisors and other leader with tips, tools and techniques to enable them to hire the right person every time and to use high-value, low-cost staff recognition to improve retention, boost morale and increase engagement. To learn about Nelson's presentations and workshops, to read more articles on staff recognition and interviewing, or to purchase copies of his book, Thanks! GREAT Job!, visit www.GREATstaffrecognition.com

TELUS WISE^®is a unique educational program focused on Internet and smartphone safety to help keep families safer from online criminal activity such as financial fraud and cyberbullying. This program is available free of charge to all Canadian adults/parents, kids, teachers, policing services and community groups (e.g. sports groups). Canadians can participate in TELUS WISE via two unique programs:

TELUS WISE is a program for parents, educators and groups which provides access to:

o Seminars – TELUS WISE Ambassadors host one hour public seminars engaging participants in a discussion about Internet and smartphone safety and security. These seminars are also available upon request for TELUS business customers, community investment partners, parent groups and community associations.

o A WISE virtual community – www.telus.com/wise is a secure website that provides users with ongoing access to great resources, articles and training around Internet and smartphone safety and security for their families.

o TELUS WISE tip sheets are also available in Chinese simple, Chinese traditional, English, French and Punjabi.

o TELUS Learning Centres – Learning Specialists in more than 225 of our exclusive TELUS locations, provide personalized, one-on-one guidance to customers on Internet and smartphone safety and security as a part of our TELUS Learning Centre program.

TELUS WISE footprint is an online digital citizenship program for kids ages eight through 16. This program provides a multi-faceted experience for Canadian teens and tweens to learn how to become good digital citizens and keep their digital footprint clean – e.g. kids can visit TELUS WISE footprint to take the ‘footprint challenge’. Upon request TELUS visits schools and engages students in engaging digital footprint discussion. There are also some great ways for kids to earn dollars for their school’s digital literacy programs while they learn.

Dave Rodwell entered the field of private investigation and security consultation work upon retiring from he RCMP. For the last number of years, he has helped companies and individuals by conducting investigations in the following areas: internal thefts,insurance investigations, motor vehicle accident investigations, unfair business practices, wrongful dismal, sexual harassment, pre-employment screening, and missing persons.

He has helped a number of companies with an assessment of their security needs, and provided written procedural manuals to meet their company needs. Dave's client base includes law firms, large and small companies, Federal and Provincial governments, municipalities, educational institutions, and individuals.

Checkout Dave's website here!

Rebecca Herold, The Privacy Professor, is an information privacy, security and compliance consultant, author and instructor who has provided assistance, advice, services, tools and products to organizations in a wide range of industries during the past two decades. Rebecca is a widely recognized and respected information security, privacy and compliance expert. Checkout Rebecca's website here!

Are you ready to accept the 15 Day Privacy Challenge? Registration is still open!

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