West Valley Medical Center - January 02, 2017
Ron Folwell

Ron Folwell
Director of Quality

Have you ever encountered a patient who is unhappy with some aspect of their care and wants to speak with someone about it? Have you ever had a safety or quality concern yourself, and wondered what the best way would be to get it resolved?

The West Valley Medical Center Quality and Risk Management Department is available to assist in resolving these types of issues. Please contact us anytime for help with:

  • Quality or patient safety concerns
  • Patient complaints/grievances
  • Incident reports
  • Regulatory, risk management, or infection prevention questions
  • Adverse event disclosures or investigations
  • Policy or procedure clarifications

We appreciate very much the work that you do, and want you to be completely satisfied with our commitment to quality, safety, and patient satisfaction.

Director of Quality
Ron Folwell
Phone: 455-3773
Email: Ron.Folwell@HCAHealthcare.com

Risk Manager
Renee DeHaas
Phone: 455-6505
Email: Renee.DeHaas@HCAHealthcare.com

Patient Advocate
Karen Baese
Phone: 455-3719
Email: Patient.Advocate@HCAHealthcare.com

HCA Clinical Safety Improvement Program

West Valley Medical Center will once again be participating in the HCA Clinical Safety Improvement Program (CSIP) in 2017. CSIP offers hospitals the opportunity to voluntarily develop and implement specific patient safety initiatives aimed at reducing adverse events, and improving clinical performance metrics as identified by HCA. Health Care Indemnity Inc. (HCI), our insurance subsidiary offers participating hospitals partial refunds of medical malpractice premiums based on successful participation in the CSIP program. West Valley’s efforts in 2016 reduced our malpractice premiums by 17.25%, and we are looking forward to another successful program in 2017.

Texting PHI

The Joint Commission recently ruled that texting or paging patient orders using personal phones or devices is inappropriate. There are no exceptions at this time. You are responsible for protecting sensitive data in all communication, including text messages.

  • Texting confidential information, including PHI, is not permitted without a secure text application installed and active by HCA on both sending and receiving devices.
  • Without appropriate software, text messages are not encrypted and, therefore, are never secure.
  • Sending any text message containing confidential information, including PHI, without using an HCA approved secure text application, is a violation of HCA policy, state, and federal laws and may result in disciplinary action for the individual.

The impact of texting without encryption:

  • PHI replicated across multiple vendors
  • Data remains resident on personal device
  • No control or policy enforcement
  • No visibility that communication had occurred
  • No guarantee of delivery
  • End users use “codes” to communicate instead of PHI

The End Result = HIPAA Violation + Compromised Care Delivery

If you have any questions or concerns about this, please feel free to contact:

Heather Howard, Facility Privacy Official
Heather.Howard@Parallon.com
455-4018

Lyndsey Jacobs, Facility Information Security Officer
Lyndsey.Jacobs@hcahealthcare.com
455-4017

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