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O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5
P r a c t i c a l p e a r l s f r o m y o u r c o l l e a g u e s
I D E A S T H A T W O R K
C
linical
practice
is a
work in progress,
a constant state
of evolution, so
it's incumbent
upon a facility to
write (or rewrite)
policies and pro-
cedures when
management and
staff learn, add or
acquire new
steps or techniques. Our staff has a combined total of more than 450
years' worth of experience: Why should we limit this task to the same
people on the same committee each time?
I assign the job of drafting practice documents to different staff
members, then I ask someone who's not in their department to read
them. If these new eyes can understand the details, I know they're
clear. Delegating the process makes new hires into experts and keeps
our longtime vets on their toes. Also, it's a way of giving them owner-
ship of our policies and procedures, which are no longer just the fat
binders on the shelf that we refer to before surveys, but our facility's
operating instructions that our staff had a hand in preparing.
Patricia H. Stibbs
Plastic Surgery Center of Hampton Roads
L E A R N B Y D O I N G
Let Your Staff Write Your Policies
Newport News, Va.
pschptrds@aol.com
Patricia
H.
Stibbs
z BY THE BOOK
Contributing policies and
procedures gives staff
ownership of the binders.
