Mental Health Awareness and COVID-19 Workplace Strategies

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Meghan in Blog

We may have mastered the physical side of working remotely but what about the emotional side?

A year ago, Canadians were three months into the pandemic. We were through the initial shock of shutdowns and closures, but most of us were still trying to find our groove in navigating the “new normal”. For millions of working Canadians, this included a sudden and drastic transition to working from home or another remote location, physically isolated from coworkers.

While employees were sorting out logistics and the practical side of things, employers were scrambling to find innovative ways to bring employees together virtually, create a sense of camaraderie and keep morale (and productivity) high. Despite best efforts on both sides of the equation, there was an immediate impact on the mental health and well-being of millions of workers. Surely these would only be temporary challenges and set-backs.

With more than a year behind us working under these conditions, it might be natural to assume that employees have come a long way since we started down this path. In some respects, we have. After all, we have learned to adjust and “make do” with our displaced and reconfigured work environments and schedules. We’ve got the physical side of working from home sorted out, even if it’s not perfect.

Thanks to technology, we can connect to our work world from remote places better than ever. Stress and anxiety levels must be lower because it’s certainly not as tough as it was in the beginning.

Or is it?

Be Mindful of Your Own Well-Being

As we plan our new workplace and home environments, Corridor Interactive provides an on-line free resource, Mental Health Awareness & COVID-19 Workplace Strategies to help you.

While working from home has its advantages, and for many may be the preferred way to work in the post-pandemic world, we need to be mindful of aspects that can impact our mental health.

Corridor’s free Mental Health Awareness & COVID-19: Workplace Strategies course includes a module with insights and tips for supporting your mental health while working from home.

If you’re not in the habit of taking time out for yourself in the midst of juggling work and home responsibilities, make this the day you start to carve time out of your workday for your own mental health and well-being.

Read the full article from Corridor Interactive: COVID’s Mental Health Toll in the Workplace 56% of Canadians Stressed & Anxious

Read the article here

Re-printed with permission from Corridor Interactive

Corridor Interactive, COVID-19, mental health, mental health in the workplace, online training, pandemic, remote working, work from home

Can We Email Patients During COVID-19?

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Meghan in Blog

Q: Can we send an email to our recent patients to inform them that we are open during the current COVID restrictions?

We know that some patients are reluctant to see their care provider in person because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are worried that they may have to wait in a crowded waiting room, or they are concerned about the possibility of waiting outside in the cold. They may not know about new care options, such as a phone consultations or video meetings.

Can we email our patients to let them know how we are addressing their concerns?

Update – This works for letting your patients know that you are offering vaccinations, too!

A: Yes, with certain limitations

In my opinion, if you are reaching out to **recent** patients / clients to assist them with their **current** health care questions, it is OK to send an email to let them know how you can provide health services within the current pandemic restrictions.

Here are some tips to help you review or create your procedures how to use email with your patients.

Make sure you have previously collected a patient's email address and their consent (verbal is OK, written is better) to use their email address for health service related messages before emailing them.
Do not accept work email addresses for patients; it must be a personal email address for the patient.
Update the patient’s demographic information, including the email address, regularly. Make this part of your process every visit as part of your identity verification.
Update the patient's consent to use their email address every time you have an in-person or telephone conversation with the patient.
Use a script for calling patients to update information and to get consent for using their email address

Use the EMR system to send patients appointment reminders or patient education resources related to their recent visit.

If you also want to send your patients engaging articles about your healthcare providers, services that you provide, or classes or products that you sell, I suggest that you use a system different from your EMR. Use an autoresponder email system to send your patients marketing materials, engaging articles and other pieces of information on a separate marketing email platform. Remember, your patient must opt-in to consent to receive information from you using your auto-responder system.

There are many autoresponder systems to select from, including MailChimp, Active Campaign, Constant Contact and many more.

Join me on the FAQ video to find out when you can email patients during COVID. Click the button below to watch!

Watch the FAQ video HERE!

Interested in learning more about Email Marketing to your patients / clients?

Check out this blog from Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing For Physical Therapists & Chiropractors by CallHero .

If you use Social Media to connect with your patients / clients, you might need the Practice Management Success Tip Social Media Management.

Get it here!

Show me Social Media Management

clinic, COVID-19, email and patients, health, healthcare, pandemic, public health restrictions, social media

Why Medical Practices Will Have to Offer Telemedicine in the Future to Compete

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Meghan in Blog

Did you know – it's a myth that patients don't want to use telehealth!

When your practice has efficient processes and in-office practice is streamlined, then you are ready to embark on seeing patients with telemedicine. The COVID-19 pandemic has been the catalyst for growth in telemedicine, and it will be an essential tool for healthcare providers in the future.

Dr. Michael Greiwe, founder of OrthoLive and SpringHealthLive telemedicine platforms is my guest on this episode of Practice Management Nuggets For Your Healthcare Practice!

He’s going to share with us how to increase your practice revenue, efficiency and patient satisfaction with telemedicine!

Dr. Michael Greiwe's #1 Tip to Healthcare Providers, Clinic Managers, and Privacy Officers

90% of Patients Prefer Telemedicine over in-office visits. Click to Tweet

My Favorite Takeaways From The Podcast

Telemedicine is the next tool that is going to make the job easier for physicians and better for patients
It's a digital health misconception that patients don't want to use telehealth
Patient access is the beauty and power of telemedicine
Get your office processes in good working order so that you can confidently implement telehealth solutions

Featured Guest: Dr. Michael Greiwe

OrthoLive & SpringHealthLive

Michael Greiwe, M.D., is a surgeon by day and tech guru by night. He is a practicing orthopaedic surgeon with OrthoCincy, near Cincinnati, Ohio, and the founder of the OrthoLive and SpringHealthLive telemedicine platforms. The platforms allow medical practices to deliver telemedicine visits through real-time HIPAA compliant video conferencing between provider and patient – increasing practice revenue, efficiency and patient satisfaction.

Dr. Greiwe is a nationally recognized expert on how telemedicine technology is changing the practice of medicine. TV news stations and podcasts across America have interviewed him about the future of telemedicine, and how to use it to improve the patient experience.

He attended the University of Notre Dame, where he won the prestigious Knute Rockne Award for excellence in academics and athletics. He completed his orthopaedic surgery training at the University of Cincinnati Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine. In 2010, Dr. Greiwe completed his fellowship in shoulder, elbow and sports medicine at Columbia University, training with the head team physician for the New York Yankees, Dr. Christopher Ahmad.

To find out more, see OrthoLive and SpringHealthLive.

Be sure to tune in to my interview with Dr. Michael Greiwe

Why Medical Practices Will Have to Offer Telemedicine in the Future to Compete | Episode #095

Listen To The Podcast Here

You may also be interested in:

Remote Working and Virtual Care Privacy Impact Assessment Templates

#PracticeManagementNugget, clinic manager, COVID-19, Dr. Michael Greiwe, healthcare, medical, OrthoLive, pandemic, patient experience, podcast, SpringHealthLive, telehealth, telemedicine

Pandemic Incident Response Review

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Meghan in Blog

Each healthcare practice has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is certainly a disruption to our business continuity and a risk to privacy and security of patient, employee, and business information.

In this podcast on Practice Management Nuggets For Your Healthcare Practice, Jean L. Eaton shares a strategy to help you with your pandemic incident response review so that you can respond to a similar incident with confidence.

Jean Eaton's #1 Tip to Healthcare Providers and Vendors

Update your Pandemic Incident Response Plan! Click to Tweet

Each healthcare practice has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is certainly a disruption to our business continuity and a risk to privacy and security of patient, employee, and business information.

Each custodian and healthcare provider must maintain a written record of safeguards that have been implemented during the pandemic, ensure that these are communicated to their affiliates, and monitor to ensure they are followed.

What can we learn about the pandemic incident response so far?
As we prepare to re-open our practices, what can we anticipate?
If we experience a second wave and have to lock down again, are you prepared?

Jean L. Eaton

Information Managers Ltd.

I am constructively obsessive about privacy and confidentiality in the healthcare sector–and I think you should be, too!

I offer tips, templates, and training to assist healthcare providers, clinic managers, practice managers, privacy officers and independent healthcare practice owners on practice management and privacy legislation that are actually fun and practical.

Your Practice Management Mentor and Your Practical Privacy Coach

Be sure to tune in to my podcast for tips on your pandemic incident response,

Pandemic Incident Response Review | Episode #088

Listen To The Podcast Here

#PracticeManagementNugget, COVID-19, healthcare, incident response plan, pandemic, podcast

Here’s a Common Telehealth Workflow Process

Posted on April 22, 2020 by Meghan in Blog

With so many changes to daily lives and schedules due to COVD-19, healthcare practices are also changing. I think that these experiences have probably advanced telehealth, virtual care, and digital health initiatives ten years in the space of six weeks.

If you have been experiencing a whiplash headache from the speed of the changes to your practice management, you are not alone!

I am committed to help you with policy, procedure, and privacy impact assessment templates and resources to support you as you implement remote working and virtual care for your patients.

Use these policy and procedure and privacy impact assessment templates to help you provide virtual care while remote working and maintain reasonable safeguards to protect the privacy and security of personal health information.

If you are moving into remote working and virtual care or telehealth, it’s important that you have anticipated the risk to privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information and have planned appropriate safeguards to prevent harm.

Patients don’t always know to ask questions about the risks of using new virtual care technology. Custodians and clinicians have a responsibility under the Health Information Act to inform patients about any additional risks to their privacy and health information while using technology in new ways. You could include this in your workflow when the patient appointment is made and the receptionist provides this information. Immediately prior to the on-line consultation, the clinician may review the collection consent and respond to questions from the patient before beginning the clinical encounter.

You might also have a legal requirement in Alberta to submit a privacy impact assessment to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

If your healthcare practice is implementing remote working or virtual care, you need to notify the OIPC.

Health information is sensitive information. Reasonable efforts must be made to ensure that identifying and sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access, loss, or damage during and outside work hours. What a custodian may consider is reasonable efforts during a pandemic may be different than reasonable efforts from normal circumstances.

In Alberta, section 64 of the Health Information Act (HIA) requires custodians to prepare a privacy impact assessment (PIA) and submit it to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Alberta prior to implementing a new administrative or technical process in a healthcare practice.

During the pandemic, the OIPC of Alberta requests an email now to outline your implementation plan. Then, promise to follow-up with a Privacy Impact Assessment submission in a few weeks.

Remote Working and Virtual Care Policy, Procedure, and PIA Templates

Templates are a time-saving tool for anyone looking to move into remote working, telehealth or virtual care solutions. Your on-line course includes instant access to checklists and resources to help you select the best virtual care options.

The policies and procedures templates will help every clinician thinking of authorizing some (or all) of your staff to remote work from home and / or provide virtual care while ensuring the privacy and security of health information.

The templates are delivered to you inside the on-line course management platform called Ruzuku. The instructions and the templates are delivered in 6 lessons. The instructions in each lesson will take you less than 5 minutes each to read.

Then, you download the templates from Ruzuku to your computer and modify each template with your clinic-specific information. Editing the MS Word templates will take you about 3 hours. I can’t estimate the amount of time that you will require to read the templates, gather information and making decisions about your remote working and virtual care project.

As you build your policies and procedures and the supporting documents, you will copy and paste them into the key sections of your PIA.

Virtual Care Workflow

There are many ways to implement virtual care or telehealth in your practice. A common workflow process includes:

Schedule the Patient Appointment – Reception

Schedule the patient appointment in the EMR.

Telephone or send a secure email to the patient with the

Appointment confirmation and instructions on how to use the video conference solution;
Collection notice; and
Privacy Officer contact information.

Request the patient to sign or verbally consent to the use electronic communication.

Time of Appointment – MOA

Receptionist / MOA initiates the video conference call with the patient.

Ensure patient can connect and hear the audio / see the video or shared screen.

Verify the patient identity.

Invite the clinician to join the video conference / make host of the call.

Notice of Collection / Consent – Clinician

Introduce yourself.

Review the Notice of Collection and Consent and respond to any questions.

Confirm that the patient is in an appropriately private location.

Document Patient Encounter – Clinician

Confirm the patient’s understanding of the assessment and plan.

Arrange to send any prescriptions to pharmacies and any requisitions or referrals to the patient or the appropriate office/facility.

Complete the clinic note in the patient record.

Is Remote Working and Virtual Care Here To Stay?

Many practices are finding benefits to having flexibility to allow staff to work from home to accommodate illness, child care disruptions, and business continuity planning. Many patients are finding that they appreciate the convenience of accessing health services without parking, time off of work, or child care struggles. Sometimes, both clinicians and patients are discovering that this new modality has inspired a better understanding of the patient's home environment and creates opportunities to improve care and treatment.

I don't think we can put this genie back in the bottle. Remote working and virtual care will become a new normal – for some practices – at least on a part-time basis. Consequently, I recommend that you take the time needed now to get the procedures and safeguards right so that we protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of health information, allow our clinicians to work to their full scope of practice, and provide the appropriate care and treatment in a way that is convenient for all parties.

I'm here to help you.

Take advantage of this offer to access the templates that will help you implement remote working and virtual care solutions in your practice.

Yes, I Want the Policy, Procedure and PIA Templates!

Not sure if remote working is right for your healthcare practice?

Check out the The Practice Management Success Tip, Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist, which will help you:

Determine if remote working is appropriate for your employees.
Identify what clinic / business resources need to be provided to the employee remote worker.
What reasonable safeguards need to be implemented to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal (health) information.

Did you enjoy this article? If you’d like to look at similar posts, visit these links:

What Should I Do If I Think I Have COVID-19?

Do You Know Where Your Policies and Procedures Are?

Is Remote Working a Good Choice for Your Healthcare Practice?

Notice of Collection for Telemedicine and Virtual Health

healthcare, medical, pandemic, physician, PIA, rehab, remote working, risk assessment, telehealth, virtual care, virtual healthcare, workflow

Do You Need a PIA for Remote Working or Virtual Care?

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Meghan in Blog

If your healthcare practice is implementing remote working or virtual healthcare, you need to notify the OIPC.

The OIPC in Alberta requests in its notice of March 19, 2020, that custodians notify the Commissioner about new administrative practices or information systems.

How Do I Notify The OIPC?

Step 1: If you have implemented, or plan to soon implement remote working, virtual care or other administrative or technical changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, send an email to the OIPC to inform them, in general terms, about your plans.

Step 2: As soon as possible, submit a project specific Privacy Impact Assessment to the OIPC.

To help you get started with Step 1, I have prepared a sample email that you can use.

Yes, send me the Sample Email to the OIPC!

Not sure if remote working is right for your healthcare practice?

Check out the The Practice Management Success Tip, Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist, will help you:

Determine if remote working is appropriate for your employees.
Identify what clinic / business resources need to be provided to the employee remote worker.
What reasonable safeguards need to be implemented to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal (health) information.

Did you enjoy this article? If you’d like to look at similar posts, visit these links:

What Should I Do If I Think I Have COVID-19?

Do You Know Where Your Policies and Procedures Are?

Is Remote Working a Good Choice for Your Healthcare Practice?

Notice of Collection for Telemedicine and Virtual Health

healthcare, medical, OIPC, pandemic, physician, PIA, remote working, risk assessment, virtual healthcare, work from home

Notice of Collection for Telemedicine and Virtual Health

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Meghan in Blog

If you are using telemedicine or virtual health, you still need to provide a notice of collection of personal information.

The Advice to the Profession series from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) offers guidance documents to assist you in assessing the security risks and safeguards of electronic communications, such as telemedicine or virtual health.



From the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA):

COVID-19: Virtual Care

Electronic Communications & Security of Mobile Devices

Standard of Practice Telemedicine

Along with helping you the assess the appropriate safeguards you need to take to protect the privacy and confidentiality of personal health information, the CPSA Advice also advises healthcare practices to ensure they have the consent of patients before providing virtual healthcare.

The collection notice is important to ensure the privacy rights of patients. But the notice is rather wordy to say before every virtual health encounter with your patients.

How can I ensure consent?

I've made it easier for you. I've recorded an audio file that you can download and save to your cell phone. Play the audio notice of collection at the start of each telephone or video call to properly inform the patient before the consult.

When you download the Practice Management Success Tip, Remote Working Privacy and Security Checklist, you will receive an email with a link to the audio file.

I hope that the checklist and the audio file will help you to make good business decisions and, if this is the right fit for you, help you to provide virtual health to your patients.

You can use the collection notice below to prompt the clinician to ask the individual for their name and date of birth at the outset of the call.

If you are using a video conference call, you could also consider having the patient display their photo ID to the camera.

Remember – don't use the record feature for the video conference call!

If you are using a video conferencing, patient portal or other third party platform, direct the patient to review the privacy policy of the provider, too.

The clinician then documents in the patient's chart that the patient's identity was verified by having the patient verbally provides their name, date of birth (and/or photo ID).

Script – Notice Of Collection

Unregulated virtual care technologies increase the risk that your personal health information may be intercepted or disclosed to third parties. These tools are being used as an extraordinary measure during the COVID-19 pandemic when regulated technology is not readily available, and the necessity to keep people from congregating or attending health facilities where they may be exposed to the COVID-19 virus is thought to outweigh the risk of personal privacy breaches on both a personal and population health basis.

By providing your information, during this teleconference or video conference call, you agree to let us collect, use, or disclose your personal health information through video or audio communications in order to provide you with care.

You will be asked to state your full name and date of birth will confirm your identity and ensure accurate record keeping.

Continuing with this telephone or video conference call indicates your consent to the collection of your personal information as authorized under the Health Information Act of Alberta.

Download The Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist

And get the Collection Notice audio for FREE.

The Practice Management Success Tip, Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist, will help you

Determine if remote working is appropriate for your employees.
Identify what clinic / business resources need to be provided to the employee remote worker.
What reasonable safeguards need to be implemented to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal (health) information.

Did you enjoy this article? If you’d like to look at similar posts, visit these links:

What Should I Do If I Think I Have COVID-19?

Do You Know Where Your Policies and Procedures Are?

Remote Working and Virtual Care Policies Procedures PIA Templates

healthcare, medical, notice of collection, pandemic, physician, remote working, risk assessment, work from home

Is Remote Working A Good Choice For Your Healthcare Practice?

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Jean Eaton in Blog

In our healthcare practices, we have policies and procedures to identify the reasonable safeguards we need to take to protect personal and health information entrusted to us. But when employees complete their roles off-site, due to personal circumstances or to ensure business continuity in unusual situations, we need to take action to ensure reasonable safeguards are in place to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal health information.

Remote Work May Be Available To Employees

Working from home is at the sole discretion of the custodian and owner of the clinic. Examples when this may be applicable include:

Business continuity – due to technical, physical, or other unusual circumstances.
Work levelling – volumes of work are distributed to another location usually for a short duration.
Illness / personal circumstances – where an employee is unable to report to work at the clinic but can continue to complete their roles off-site.

Some administrative tasks in a healthcare office – for example, incoming phone calls, appointment booking, appointment reminders, billing, and/or transcription – could be done from a home office environment. Sometimes even follow-up and consultations from the healthcare provider can be done remotely, too.

The healthcare provider or custodian is ultimately responsible to ensure the secure collection, use, and disclosure of health information.

For the purposes of this article, the ‘custodian’ may be the healthcare provider defined by the HIA, or the lead healthcare provider or owner in your practice.

In Alberta, a ‘custodian’ is defined under the Health Information Act as a health services provider who is designated in the regulations as a custodian, or who is within a class of health services providers that is designated in the regulations. HIA section 1(1)(f)(ix)

This includes:

Physicians
Pharmacists
Optometrists
Opticians
Chiropractors
Midwives
Podiatrists
Denturists
Dentists and dental hygienists
Registered nurses

Is Remote Working Good for Your Business?

As the custodian, you must decide if remote working is a good option for your business. When you decide that this is a viable option for your business, you then need to:

Determine if remote working is appropriate for your employees.
Identify what clinic / business resources need to be provided to the employee remote worker.
What reasonable safeguards need to be implemented to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal (health) information.

Likely you will continue to have both on-site and remote workers. The custodian will decide what ratio is appropriate to provide patient care and business goals on both a short term and a long term basis.

Regulations, Standards, Policy

Each healthcare business has multiple sources of sensitive information, including employee, financial, business, and health information. Custodians and owners have a responsibility under a variety of regulations, professional practice standards, and internal policies to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personally identifying information (PII).

During a public health crisis, privacy laws still apply, but they are not a barrier to appropriate information sharing.

Privacy Impact Assessments

In Alberta, section 64 of the Health Information Act (HIA) requires custodians to prepare a privacy impact assessment (PIA) and submit it to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Alberta prior to implementing a new administrative or technical process in a healthcare practice.

The OIPC in Alberta requests in its notice of March 19, 2020, that custodians notify the Commissioner about new administrative practices or information systems. Your submission to the OIPC should include a description of what the new program is meant to achieve and any safeguards for health information.

Standards

Your professional college may also have standards of practice and recommendations that impact your decision to implement remote working or virtual healthcare.

The Advice to the Profession series from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) offers guidance documents to assist you in assessing the security risks and safeguards of electronic communications, including laptops and mobile devices, to further assist you to determine appropriate safeguards.



From the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA):

COVID-19: Virtual Care

Electronic Communications & Security of Mobile Devices

Standard of Practice Telemedicine

Review Your Current Policies and Procedures

Don’t cut corners. Instead, build privacy into your decision. Create, review, and update your policies and procedures.

Use the Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist to help you document your decisions and expectations with eligible employees.

You may also need to consult your information technology support providers to ensure up-to-date computer and network security has been implemented.

Virtual Healthcare

Healthcare providers may consider providing virtual healthcare services to their patients. The healthcare provider may be at their usual clinic or office location and use all of their existing systems and tools to access patient records in paper or electronic medical records (EMR).

Alternatively, the healthcare provider may be working remotely, too. The same privacy, confidentiality, and security safeguards applies to their home working location.

If you are choosing to implement a new virtual healthcare solution specifically to respond to the current public health emergency, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Alberta advises that

“ . . .custodian[s] need to determine what are reasonable safeguards in the circumstances and be prepared to justify their decision. Health custodians should also ensure individuals are aware of any heightened risks to privacy as a result of a new administrative practice or information system being implemented.”

Remember, you can leverage existing technology – like the telephone – to keep in touch with your patients. This likely would not be considered a new administrative or technological practice that would require a PIA. This might also be a great time to fully implement your current patient portal functionality from your EMR vendor, too.

You may decide, based on your evaluation of the potential risks and what reasonable safeguards that you can quickly implement in response to the new public health emergency, that authorizing remote working or a new videoconferencing solution is not the best choice at this time.

Select the process that ensures continuity of care to the patient, including appropriate documentation in the patient record and the protection of the PII.

Reference

Notice: PIAs During Public Health Emergency, March 19, 2020, Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Alberta

The Practice Management Success Tip, Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist, will help you

Determine if remote working is appropriate for your employees.
Identify what clinic / business resources need to be provided to the employee remote worker.
What reasonable safeguards need to be implemented to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal (health) information.

Show Me The Remote Worker Privacy and Security Checklist

Did you enjoy this article? If you’d like to look at similar posts, visit these links:

What Should I Do If I Think I Have COVID-19?

Do You Know Where Your Policies and Procedures Are?

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