3 Critical Components to Keep Your Policies and Procedures Current

A standard set of policies and procedures is crucial to all healthcare organizations, but simply having them in place is just the beginning. In the last few years healthcare has undergone significant changes. Changes in technology, culture, laws and protocol has made updating policies and procedures timely and efficiently a strategic imperative for healthcare organizations. Providing clear directives and identifying the critical components for reviewing your policies and procedures will help you avoid poor survey results and ensure you’re managing your organization effectively. We’ve identified three critical components that you can use to ensure policies and procedures remain current.  

Regularly Check Expiration Dates

If you’re still working with shared folders to manage policies and procedures that are scattered throughout the organization, then you know how challenging it is to stay on top of expiration dates. Let a policy or procedure go expired and you could face backlash during an unexpected audit. Knowing when certain policies must be updated will allow you to create a game plan for editing and getting the necessary approvals.

Clarify the Approval Process

Once you’ve established which policies and procedures need to be updated, you’ll want to identify the appropriate team members within your organization to rewrite and approve your policies. A clear approval process will cut down on back and forth revisions and keep your team marching forward to meet deadlines. This is a huge challenge for many organizations and is one reason that many choose software platforms like PolicyStat.

Get Employee Acknowledgement

You’ve established which policies and procedures need updating and collaborated with the necessary team members to get them approved. Now it’s time to get employee acknowledgement. Not only do acknowledgements help ensure compliance, but more importantly you will feel confident that each team member in your organization has what they need to administer the best patient care possible. After all that’s why you got into healthcare in the first place.

We’ve just scratched the surface when it comes to maintaining a world-class policy and procedure management program, but these three critical components will ensure you’re on the right track. Updating and maintaining policies and procedures can be a daunting task, but the key components and best tools can make this overwhelming job easier. Find out how PolicyStat makes policies easy to find, manage and access. Our software makes it easy for you to manage policies and procedures efficiently, so you can do what you love most.