SUTTER HEALTH: Wins Award For Ethics Training
The Health Care Compliance Association recently awarded Sutter Health's Standards For Business Conduct Handbook for employees its national "Best Practice" award. HCCA, a nonprofit organization made up of more than 300 health care providers across the nation, strives to help health professionals understand and meet the expectations of customers, patients, regulators and their communities. Sutter recently trained 35,000 employees, physicians and volunteers in the handbook's principles over a one-year period, with yearly training updates scheduled in the future. Sheryl Vacca, Sutter's corporate compliance officer, said, "The laws and regulations covering the health care industry are extremely complex and can be difficult for our employees to understand and follow. The compliance program at Sutter Health helps to ensure all of our employees, physicians and volunteers are educated about the regulatory atmosphere in the nation and our Standards for Business Conduct handbook is an important tool. It helps to define the individual's role in making sure we are complying with the myriad rules that relate to the business of health care." Sutter's compliance program is currently profiled in "A Case Study in Corporate Compliance -- How Sutter Health Developed and Initiated Its Standards of Business Conduct," published by Opus Communications (Sutter release, 12/2).
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