In healthcare, a weakness in clinical decision-making is eventually paid for by a patient. Cost pressure and quality expectations on this aspect of health and pharmaceutical services are rising at the same time. It is written for people who have to make this area of health and pharmaceutical services work with the resources they already have. Cases are chosen to expose the trade-offs in clinical decision-making rather than to illustrate ideal conditions. The result is the confidence to make and defend decisions about this part of health and pharmaceutical services under scrutiny. Teams frequently over-invest in documenting this aspect of health and pharmaceutical services and under-invest in testing it. This programme builds clinical decision-making from first principles, without padding and without omitting what matters. The most reliable predictor of sound the wider health and pharmaceutical services agenda is whether anyone reviews it when nothing has gone wrong. Participants leave with a first-ninety-days plan for the health and pharmaceutical services discipline rather than a set of notes.
Expected Learning Outcomes
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Apply root cause analysis to adverse events involving clinical decision-making.
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Translate policy on clinical decision-making into procedures that hold up under day-to-day pressure.
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Build informed consent and ethics practice into clinical decision-making.
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Design a training and briefing approach that sustains competence in clinical decision-making.
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Integrate clinical decision-making into existing management routines rather than running it separately.
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Prepare the documented evidence accreditation assessors expect on clinical decision-making.
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Plan staffing and rota cover appropriate to demand in clinical decision-making.
Who Should Attend
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Business partners who must understand clinical decision-making well enough to challenge it.
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Managers in small and medium organisations who own clinical decision-making alongside other duties.
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Hospital and health facility managers accountable for clinical decision-making.
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Health information and records staff supporting clinical decision-making.
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Nursing managers and clinical supervisors delivering clinical decision-making.
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Clinical department heads responsible for clinical decision-making.
Course Modules
Open any module to see its sessions and topics.
01
Clinical decision-making: confidentiality, consent and ethics
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Keeping supply and cold chain reliable for clinical decision-making
Build medication safety checks into clinical decision-making at the point of highest risk.
Confirm that those complying with clinical decision-making understand why it exists.
Prepare the summary of clinical decision-making that senior management will read.
Map the clinical workflow for clinical decision-making as it is actually performed.
Session 2Investigating an adverse event involving clinical decision-making
Distinguish symptoms from causes when clinical decision-making underperforms.
Select quality indicators for clinical decision-making that measure outcome rather than activity.
Cost clinical decision-making per episode and identify avoidable waste.
Map the handovers in clinical decision-making between functions and secure them.
02
Clinical decision-making: incident reporting, investigation and learning
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1What has to be agreed before work on clinical decision-making starts
Establish the boundary of clinical decision-making and record what sits outside it.
Write down the assumptions underpinning the approach to clinical decision-making.
Apply structured root cause analysis to the last adverse event involving clinical decision-making.
Check that consent processes within clinical decision-making are genuinely informed.
Session 2Consent, confidentiality and ethics in clinical decision-making
Establish what evidence demonstrates clinical decision-making is under control.
Check that records of clinical decision-making answer the questions likely to be asked.
Rehearse the briefing on clinical decision-making that would follow an incident.
Reduce unwarranted variation in clinical decision-making between shifts and sites.
03
Clinical decision-making: regulation, licensing and accreditation evidence
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Closing out clinical decision-making and capturing what was learned
Confirm competence and continuing development for staff delivering clinical decision-making.
Assemble the accreditation evidence pack for clinical decision-making.
Plan continuity of clinical decision-making during surge and outbreak conditions.
Set out the decisions in clinical decision-making that require sign-off and by whom.
