Investigation Tracking and Analysis

Description: At this PRTF (psychiatric residential treatment facility), it was important to monitor the adolescent patients' claims of abuse and neglect. However, the claims made were not always black-and-white. Think of a spectrum where "The patient suffered abuse/neglect" is at one extreme and "The patient fabricated everything" is at the other end.

Many of the results fell somewhere in the middle between those two extremes. Negligence meant that: an employee or patient could be severely harmed; local law enforcement would become involved; the company could lose its accreditation and ability to do business; and any other unforeseen calamity.

It was my job to accept the complaints ("Grievances") from patients and then either route them to the appropriate manager or complete the investigation myself. We used video footage and interviews with witnesses and those involved in the allegation. Aside from the results rarely being extreme, we discovered new things in this process that helped the leadership team to better coach employees and for therapeutic staff to provide better support to the struggling patients.

Sometimes a patient made an allegation because other needs weren't being met and they didn't know how else to communicate.

Sometimes an employee truly meant well but could use more professional development in a previously unknown area.

The process was meant to protect the patients from harm and the staff from false allegations And then if we determined that someone actually did willfully engage in a malicious action, the management could act accordingly and with valid evidence. To monitor this system, I created a tracking tool which collected all grievance data. I presented the data to leaders monthly so that they could understand how these complaints were occurring in their programs. We were able to also pull up individual data on patients and on staff member to see repeated patterns of behavior that needed addressing.

Outputs: Data graphics presented to executive leaders, program managers, law enforcement, governing body representatives, and other concerned parties on a monthly and as-needed basis.

**The data presented in the tracking tool here has either been removed or invented in order to respect the privacy of the organization.