If you are a nursing home owner, you know that risk is part of the industry. While you have your patients’ best interests in mind, sometimes things can go wrong. As the owner, it is your job to do everything in your power to reduce these risks. Today, we are going to learn some tips that can help you do just that. Each of these tips will provide a layer of protection for your patients and help protect your business from legal issues.

Invest in Clinical Alarm Monitoring

Clinical alarm monitoring is a great way to help protect your patients. These systems can alert staff quickly if something goes wrong. Not only will your nursing desk be alerted of a problem, each staff member can get individual alerts on their smart devices. This can summon help quickly which is very important during a medical emergency. Clinical alarms can monitor oxygen and pneumatic tubes, help with medication management to avoid mistakes and even help with patient location tracking. These monitoring systems are cost-effective and a great way to protect your patients getting them the help they need fast.

Require Extensive Background Checks

To help reduce risk at your facility, you should conduct extensive background checks on all of your workers before you hire them. This will bring up any red flags that a potential hire may be trying to hide. While the person you are interviewing may seem like a professional, there may be some things in their past that can prove otherwise. Background checks are simple to conduct and they won’t cost you a lot of money. So there is no reason why you shouldn’t be doing them. In fact, you might be in a state that requires them by law.

Conduct Random Drug Tests

While you might require drug screenings when you hire someone, you should not stop there. By conducting random drug tests, you will keep your patients safe and it will help protect you from potential lawsuits. When you have someone working at your facility and they make a mistake because they are under the influence of drugs, you could be held liable. While these mistakes won’t be caused by you directly, a court may still find that you are responsible. Also, random drug testing may discourage a drug user from applying at your facility in the first place allowing you to avoid any issue they may have caused. Your insurance company may even give you a discount on your rates if you put a testing policy in place.

These are just a few ways to help reduce risk at your nursing home facility. Having a clinical alarm monitoring system installed in your facility will help your staff better respond to emergencies and keep up with patients’ needs. Keep in mind that if you have a drug testing policy in place, you can avoid many issues that come with drug use. Additionally, doing background checks before you hire someone can help weed out those that are not right for this industry.