The importance of easily accessible policies and procedures

Health providers are strictly monitored over their ability to provide services in a safe and professional way. Basically, in order to receive health contracts your organisation must comply with all legislation and must be able to prove that it does.

It's all about Quality Control

Policies and procedures are essential, not only to prove that you have processes in place to manage different employment and service issues, but also to show you are committed to working to external standards such as the Home and Community Support Sector Standards.

Edutech KM writers have experience in developing policies and procedures to meet a variety of standards. We work with the organisation to identify any gaps and then to frame up workable policies and procedures to fit the needs of all levels of the organisation.

Examples

Online procedures

Access Homehealth had already developed a large volume of policies and procedures to maintain consistency across the organisation. Management's concern, however, was that the time taken to refer to these bulky policies and procedures was inhibiting supervisors from referring to them. What they wanted was an easily accessible reference system.

Their other concern was that not all their supervisors had Internet access, as they were based in rural areas of New Zealand, they did, however, all have access to a computer. The solution was to transfer the organisation's policies and procedures onto CD-ROM and to build a system of referencing and cross-referencing that allowed supervisors to find a policy quickly and efficiently.

Written procedures

Although not a health provider, Carter Holt Harvey Packaging Case division needed to meet ISO accreditation, but there were gaps in their policies and procedures. They also wanted to remove all barriers that prevented staff at three bases from accessing the procedures.

Managers opted for a database-driven system that enabled them to quickly update policies and to ensure that staff saw the current version at all times. Edutech technical writers worked with managers to define each policy and create procedures where necessary. Each version was circulated and collated until full agreement was reached.

Our technical staff then created a customised database and input system and worked with their technicians to load this onto the CHH extranet. Any changes were entered through the database and became instantly viewable from any of three branches. The policies could be printed off, but each printing was dated and considered an invalid copy after three days.

The company was thus able to cater for the need to have a system that easily responded to new information or legislation, but gave employees the option of printed copy where access to a computer was not practicable.

Effective delivery of policies and procedures is one way to ensure consistency of service. Click here to find out how more formal learning can be achieved online.

Edutech KM Ltd

PO Box 25-241, Victoria Street, Christchurch;
phone: 64-3-337-0234
fax: 64-3-337-0235
info@edutechkm.com
Copyright to Edutech KM Ltd 2008 Privacy Statement