HistoryMission
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ELM's mission is to be a leading provider of a proactive, effective medical-legal/risk management education programs that stress the role of the physician in anticipating and managing risk and, therefore, preventing patient injury. The mission of ELM’s educational program is to develop web-based courseware that is customized to the needs of the participant and medical organizations and that helps to create a culture of safety within medical organizations. Using case studies, ELM will teach physicians of every specialty to recognize when legal risk is present in their clinical practice, what factors may cause increased risk exposure and how to prevent compensable harm to their patients. The purpose of ELM's CME program is to provide a crucial reward system for physicians who participate in and learn these important medical-legal concepts, ultimately leading to improvements in patient care.
By delivering this content over the Internet via a relational database, ELM courseware incorporates testing and survey collection. In this way, ELM will assess physician learning and evaluate their understanding of medical-legal principles as well as create a feedback loop for participant response and input. These results will be utilized to improve existing courses and guide future course development.
Mission Components
ELM’s mission statement, as an educational provider and an accredited CME provider, run parallel to each other as ELM’s company purpose is to educate healthcare professionals. Our mission statement is intended to address the following areas:
- Purpose: The purpose of ELM’s CME program, as well as the company itself, is to provide web-based education for physicians to make more confident choices whenever medico-legal questions arise or patient safety is jeopardized in the clinical context by providing educational experiences in which they are expected to apply salient legal points to the retrospective examination of a physician's conduct.
- Content Areas: ELM curriculum explores the interaction between the law and medicine by illustrating the legal issues and principles involved in real, clinical situations. Case studies portray specific clinical events, to teach healthcare providers to assess the legal acceptability of their professional conduct and their roles in protecting patient safety. ELM courseware currently include courses focused on medical-legal principles (Accepting Patients, Consent, Discontinued Care, Duties to Non-patients, etc.); specialty specific courses addressing standards of care (Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Surgery, etc.), and roles and responsibilities within the healthcare team (Chain of Command, Handoffs & Communication, Supervision and Control.) Courses are customized to satisfy both state requirements and the medical organization's perceived professional liability needs.
- Target: ELM courses cut across medical specialty and are intended for any practicing physician, covering a range of topics affecting the delivery of healthcare.
- Type: All ELM educational activities are Internet-based, Enduring Material. They utilize case studies to help physicians apply risk and safety principles to their clinical practice.
- Expected Results: ELM’s expectation and goal is to impact the malpractice experience of both individual physicians and healthcare delivery organizations. This is measured by both short term and long term milestones. In the short term, we expect that activity participants will demonstrate a sensitivity to risk in clinical practice and be able to respond to and manage that risk. We measure this by their performance in activity post tests where clinical situations are presented and they are required to assess the appropriateness of a healthcare provider’s response. Further, we expect them to have greater confidence in managing such situations. This will be a primary driver for protecting patient safety and is measured by their survey feedback.
In the long term, we expect to see continued reduced claims frequency from our participants and participating client facilities. Outcome assessment studies are being conducted to evaluate the effect of ELM programming on claims experience. Although the overall outcome will not be fully developed for years, early data has provided strong indicators of program strength and effectiveness, with the ultimate goal of decreasing the frequency and severity of claims.