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Florida Statutes § 395.0197

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“Internal risk management program under the public health law”

Every hospital must establish an internal risk management program that analyzes and corrects adverse incidents and patient grievances. The program must have system for informing a patient that the patient was the subject of an adverse incident. A hospital’s employees have a duty to report adverse incidents to the hospital’s risk manager within 3 business days after their occurrence.

Each licensed facility must submit an annual report to the Department of Health summarizing the incident reports that have been filed in the facility for that year. The annual report is confidential and is not available to the public. The annual report is not discoverable or admissible in any civil or administrative action, except in disciplinary proceedings by the department or the appropriate regulatory board.

Each licensed facility must annually report to the Department of Health the name and judgments entered against each health care practitioner for which it assumes liability.

The Agency for Health Care Administration must publish on its website on a quarterly basis a summary and trend analysis of adverse incident reports received. The agency must also publish an annual summary and trend analysis of all adverse incident reports and malpractice claims information provided by facilities in their annual reports. The quarterly and annual reports must not include information that would identify the patient, the reporting facility, or the practitioners involved.

A hospital employee must report any incidents of sexual abuse of patients to the local police and notify the hospital risk manager and the administrator.

The term “adverse incident” means a medical intervention which:

  • Results in death, brain or spinal damage, permanent disfigurement, fracture or dislocation of bones or joints, or other injury of the patient;
  • Was the performance of a surgical procedure on the wrong patient, a wrong surgical procedure, a wrong-site surgical procedure or a surgical procedure otherwise unrelated to the patient's diagnosis or medical condition;
  • Required the surgical repair of damage resulting to a patient from a planned surgical procedure, where the damage was not a recognized specific risk, as disclosed to the patient and documented through the informed-consent process; or
  • Was a procedure to remove unplanned foreign objects remaining from a surgical procedure.

Related laws:

Florida Statutes § 119.07

Florida Statutes § 395.1065

Florida Statutes § 395.10974

Florida Statutes § 456.071

Florida Statutes § 765.401

Florida Statutes § 775.082

Florida Statutes § 775.083

Florida Statutes § 794.011

 


Current as of June 2015