Key Components of Performing Risk Management in Healthcare
To navigate the healthcare risk continuum healthcare organizations and risk managers need to:
- Identify Risk Since risk management involves managing uncertainty and new risk is constantly emerging, it is challenging to recognize all the threats a healthcare entity faces. However, through the use of data, institutional and industry knowledge, and by engaging everyone — patients, employees, administrators, and payers—healthcare risk managers can uncover threats and potentially compensatory events that otherwise would be hard to anticipate.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Quantify & Prioritize Risk Once identified, it is vital to score, rank, and prioritize risks based on their likelihood and impact of occurrence and then allocate resources and assign tasks based on these measures. To accomplish this, risk matrices and heat maps can be deployed that will also help to visualize risks and promote communication and collaborative decision-making.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Investigate & Report Sentinel Events Coined by the Joint Commission, Sentinel Events are “any unanticipated event in a healthcare setting resulting in death or serious physical or psychological injury to a patient or patients, not related to the natural course of the patient’s illness.” When a sentinel event occurs, quick response and thorough investigation address immediate patient safety issues and reduce future risk. Having an established plan in place promotes calm and measured response and transparency by staff and ensures that corrective actions can be implemented and evaluated. Sentinel events are not always the result of errors. However, achieving transparency and thorough evaluation requires healthcare organizations to establish an atmosphere of respect, trust, and cooperation between staff and leadership.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Perform Compliance Reporting As with the Joint Commission, Federal, state, and other oversight bodies mandate reporting of certain types of incidents including sentinel events, medication errors, and medical device malfunctions. Incidents such as wrong-site or patient surgery, workplace injuries, medication errors, etc. need to be documented, coded, and reported.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Capture & Learn from Near Misses & Good Catches When mistakes or adverse events are avoided due to luck or intervention, “near misses” and “good catches” occur. These are often the best way to identify and prevent risk. Healthcare providers should develop a culture that encourages reporting so that prevention measures and best practices can be instituted.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Think Beyond the Obvious to Uncover Latent Failures Active failures are obvious and easily-identified — when a nurse gives the wrong medication dose to a patient for example. Latent failures, on the other hand, are often hidden and only uncovered through analysis and critical examination. Did poor lighting make it hard to read the patient’s chart? Was the nurse rushing because he had too many high-acuity patients? When exploring the causes of an unfavorable episode, consider underlying and less-readily-apparent reasons.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Deploy Proven Analysis Models for Incident Investigation Models for analyzing accidents are used to understand latent failures and causes as well as relationships among risks. For example, understaffing and fatigue often lead to medical errors. Applying well-established models improves risk management effectiveness and efficiency. Two accident analysis models used in healthcare risk management are the and the Sharp and Blunt End Evaluation of Clinical Errors model. FMEA or Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, as well as Root Cause Analysis, are also deployed and involve detailed frameworks to help uncover the causes and effects of medical mistakes.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.
- Invest in a Robust Risk Management Information System (RMIS) Multiple platforms for reporting and managing risk are on the market. These systems provide tools for documenting incidents, tracking risk, reporting trends, benchmarking data points, and making industry comparisons. Reports can be generated for losses, incidents, open claims, and lost work time for injured employees to name a few. RMIS can greatly enhance risk management by improving performance through available and reliable