Florida Gulf Coast University Backlog and Quality Management Questions

Transcript

Capstone Video: Accurate and Timely Birth Certificate Reporting

[ Music ]

>> Barbara?

>> Come on in. Just a moment. Okay. Okay. I’m sorry, Paula.

>> That’s all right. Thanks for making time to see me so soon. I know that you inherited a full plate when you took this position over so I’ll get right to it.

>> Please.

>> I received this from the state vital statistics coordinator. Apparently, Northview Hospital has been flagged for noncompliance for birth certificates. Now, I know you’re relatively new to the hospital and you’ve been contending with personnel issues and operation problems. This has to be a priority.

>> I can definitely understand that. One of the first things I found when I took over this job three months ago was a major backlog in birth certificates. Actually, the office of vital statistics contacted me about six weeks ago to follow-up. Apparently, they had already sent a letter to this office —

>> Oh, boy.

>> Specifically about our poor performance in getting birth certificates submitted to the state. According to them, whoever held this position before never responded to that letter. Not to speak ill of whoever that was.

>> No, no, I know. And nobody expects you to take the blame for anything that happened before you got here. What I want to focus on is what sort of changes you’ve implemented to address these issues.

>> Okay. Well I’ve already —

>> I say issues because it’s not just the lateness of the birth certificates. It’s their accuracy to. The vital staff coordinator points out here, roughly 50% of all of the reports that we sent out our return for problems.

>> Okay. Well, let me just detail what I’ve done. I’ve met with the birth certificate coordinator about the lack of timeliness of the birth certificates and that meeting was documented. I’ve had her develop a plan to enable us to eliminate the backlog.

>> Has she implemented it?

>> The last I spoke to her about it, she said we should be all caught up with the backlog by the end of the month which is next week.

>> Well, that’s good to hear. What’s your plan for addressing the quality concerns with all of these returned birth certificates?

>> To be honest with you, I’m really surprised to hear about that high return rate. This is the first I’m hearing about it.

>> Since there’s a quality issue with information that’s been reported in the past along with the backlog, I want to see a plan that addresses not just the backlog but the quality issues as well.

>> Of course. Of course. My first step is going to be to correct the returned birth certificates since those are obviously the most delinquent. I’d like to start by doing a quality audit on the return certificates to see if there is a common problem to them also we can focus on bad if need be. Concurrently with that, I’d like to review the current policy and procedure with the birth certificate coordinator. Clearly, either the policy and procedure aren’t being followed or there are inconsistencies written into the policy and procedures that are causing the errors in the first place. If we need to, we can update the policy and procedures to bring them in line with the correct methods of obtaining complete, accurate data. On the other hand, if the policies and procedures are valid, they’re just not being followed by the birth certificate coordinator, either way we’ll have a training session with the coordinator.

>> That sounds right.

>> Like I said, we already have a schedule to eliminate the backlog. And I’ll monitor that to make sure it’s working and if not, why.

>> That’s good.

>> And lastly, I’d like to train another HIM clerk to do birth certificates, at least temporarily. That way we can get the backlog out according to plan and correct the returned birth certificates. This clerk can also help the regular birth certificate clerk during unusually heavy periods or during vacations.

>> Okay. That sounds solid. Do me a favor. Would you? Catch up with me a couple of weeks and let me know how you’re progressing with the backlog, the returned certificates and the quality issues.

>> I’ll be happy to. I’m sure I’ll have good news for you.

>> That’ll be great. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

1.What might be causing the quality issues?

2.What steps should the HIM director take to rectify the backlog and quality issues?

3.What should be included in the plan the COO requested?