An update on Legal and Compliance team’s high-priority projects

A message from Shari Flowers, general counsel and vice president of Compliance for Methodist Health System

Mitigating risk for the health system is the No. 1 priority for the 12 members of the Legal and Compliance team. How we mitigate risk varies based on the projects or issues we’re addressing on a daily basis. 

Here are a few of the things Legal and Compliance is currently tackling: 

High-priority projects

PowerPolicy, a new platform for policy management that launched earlier this month, is a crucial project for Methodist. The old system became very cumbersome and, quite frankly, wasn’t effective. For example, while researching an issue that transpired in 2020, we struggled to track down the appropriate policy in an effort to determine its owner. The same held true during Joint Commission visits related to complaints. With over 3,000 health system policies, we needed to explore new alternatives for archiving old policies, updating new ones and tracking changes. 

Change can be difficult, but we’re very excited about this new software program, which will better track policy changes, automate reminders when policies need to be reviewed or updated and offer searchable access to all the policies we have in place. This new program will also allow us to consolidate duplicate policies, which better reflects our system strength.

PowerPolicy is the new policy platform that all employees can access. Two members of my team – Jen Anderson and Joe Tweedt – are dedicated to helping you navigate this new tool. We’re committed to setting you up for success, which translates to a big win for the organization as a whole.

Another high-priority item the team has been assisting with is the advance care planning initiative we’re working on with palliative and primary care teams. A work group has been meeting regularly to develop a packet for patients beginning conversations related to choosing a medical power of attorney, living wills and other important health care decisions. We believe that if care team members can start having those discussions prior to hospitalization, the result will be a better care experience for all involved. Stay tuned for more information on this.

High-priority issues

As you may recall, we announced that beginning Oct. 1, employees will no longer be able to access their own or their family members’ health information through Cerner. 

We were seeing misuse of this access with no release of information on file. Very few health care systems actually allow such access. This is a significant Risk Management issue for the organization, and it was critical that we addressed such access. We’re working on a change in proxy access for family members and will be sharing more on that soon. Meanwhile, I encourage you to download the new Methodist My Care app to safely and responsibly access your health information and more. 

See something, say something

While these are exciting and productive initiatives, our work will always remain in mitigating risk and ensuring compliance throughout the health system. If something doesn’t appear right, it probably isn’t. Please bring such concerns to our attention by reaching a member of our team or calling our confidential hotline. 

We appreciate everyone’s attention to keeping our organization safe. Together we can create an environment that helps ensure we’re doing the right things for our patients and each other.