All too often, hard-working medical professionals find that their licensure is at risk due to factors that are beyond their control. In theory, someone’s license should only ever be at risk when they have proven that they can’t be trusted to properly care for patients. However, there are occupational circumstances that may imperil someone’s license that have nothing to do with negligent, reckless or intentionally subpar professional approaches.
The Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI) lists the top 10 patient safety issues that should concern the healthcare industry. Many of them also affect the safety of healthcare professionals. And sometimes, these safety issues turn into licensure risks.
Sometimes, issues are the fault of a facility, not an individual
The top 10 safety issues for 2023, as indicated by ECRI, include verbal and physical abuse directed against healthcare workers, complications resulting from poor care coordination and pediatric mental health concerns. It isn’t hard to imagine scenarios in which these patient safety issues could turn into safety issues for healthcare providers as well.
Unfortunately, it also isn’t difficult to see how the failure of a professional’s employer to address these issues could lead to an individual provider being singled out for what is – at the heart of things – an institutional failure.
Healthcare professionals who are risking discipline, and even the loss of their professional licenses, as a result of an employer’s failure to address institutional risks can benefit from seeking legal guidance. Otherwise, they may be compelled to take the fall for a complex reality of professional challenges that should be an employer’s responsibility to address and mitigate.
