ABC Hospital Risk Management Plan - Essay Example

RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN Purpose of the ABC Hospital risk management plan The purpose of this Performance Improvement plan is to develop a well- planned and organization-wide approach that will process the performance, analysis, and improvement of ABC Hospital. The major aims behind this improvement are to ensure protection of patients and staff members and the entire organization’s financial assets as well as its reputation and position in the society. In health care institutions, risk management is aimed to identify, assess and decrease risks for patients, visitors of the establishments, medical staff and organizational assets (Kavaler & Spiegel, 2003). A risk management plan, consequently, is designed to assure people covered within it to obtain all of the health care services they expect, eliminating at the same time occurrences that can lead to illness of the parties involved in the health care institution. The main focus of the ABC Hospital risk management plan is to provide an ongoing, comprehensive, and systematic approach to reducing risk exposures. Thus, risk management activities of identification, investigation, analysis, and evaluation of risks are the most appropriate methods for improvement of all activities within ABC Hospital. Goals and objectives of the plan The objectives of risk management plan for ABC Hospital include: improvement in terms of provision of quality of patient care along with the performance improvement activities, increase of patient satisfaction, minimization the frequency of adverse events connected with the poor services provided by the ABC Hospital, promotion of awareness and empowering of staff to define issues connected to risks, enhancement of patient and organizational safety strategies and other safety initiatives applied all over the medical establishment, enhancement of environmental safety for patients and staff through participation in care-related activities conducted by an organization, utilization of risk management strategies that minimize the frequency of near misses and claims, management of adverse experiences and minimization of financial loss, education of Hospital staff and visitors on emerging risk and ways of risk reduction, achievement of requirements proposed by the organization, accomplishment of specific scope of practice, applicable laws, regulations and standards. Scope The risk management plan developed for ABC Hospital is aimed to establish closer connection and collaboration between the departments of the Hospital and the services they provide in order to improve the overall service delivery. In addition, it identifies, investigates and management of accidents, injuries and other events and the process will be directed by the risk manager on managing adverse events occurring with patients, employees and other organizational assets. The risk management plan will affect, persuade and educate staff of the above mentioned departments in order to improve quality of care within the safe environment and protect resources of ABC Hospital. These departments are the Administration, Billing Services, Business Development, Clinical Services, Health Information and Privacy Management, Employee Health, Human Resources, Infection Control, Legal Services, Medical Equipment, Relations with patients, Quality and Improvement of Performance, Safety Management and Environment of Care and Security Management. Resources needed for Risk management plan implementation will include meetings with staff and initiatives directed toward support of team efforts, training and development of skills necessary for better provision of services. A Quality and Improvement of Performance department will assist with the collection of data for evaluation of what should be improved and what goals should be reached. The Risk manager will appoint a responsible person to deal with the flow of Risk Management plan in ABC Hospital and will also review the risk exposure on the regular basis and then make recommendations as to the necessary changes within the plan. Definitions and acronyms Adverse event: an undesired outcome, which is not expected within the normal course of healthcare process Claims management: activities conducted by the risk manager to display control on claims against the healthcare institution and its providers; they are aimed to identify potential claims, informing an organization authorities about potential damages. Near miss: situation caused by an accident by chance or through timely intervention; it creates an opportunity to develop preventive strategies and actions toward possible situation and its negative consequence. Patient Safety Goals: in order to deliver good services in medical care, it is important to use medicines safely by labeling them and taking precautions; staff is aimed to review patients’ medications; communicate and educate staff about current medication. Risk analysis: examination of causes, potential probability and harm of the risk defined; identification of alternatives for dealing with the risk; risk analysis includes root-cause and effects and systems analysis, failure mode, and tracing of adverse events and near misses. Risk avoidance: involvement of anti-risks practices. Risk control: management of risk with the help of methods that are directed on eliminating and decrease of probability of the adverse event; reduction and minimization of harm to people and the financial severity of losses. Unsafe condition: a set of certain situations which can enhance the likelihood of a serious adverse outcome as for patients as for staff or other individual. A&AS- Advisory & Assistance Service AE – adverse event CWS – comparison with standards EPC- emergency planning committee MCI- mass casualty incidents Responsibilities The key responsible Risk manager is able to implement the functions and activities within the risk management plan. One is capable to guide others with necessary information about appropriate patient care. This governing body has a responsibility to effectively manage a plan and provide all necessary resources. These responsibilities are supported by means of regular written and verbal communications to staff and providing them other risk management activities that positively impact organization. Performance Improvement Sub-Committee is also involved into the implementation of risk management plan. These are primarily medical staff from different departments of ABC Hospital and who on the basis of regular meetings identify, examine and assess incident reports of a clinic nature and define measures aimed to improve performance. During these meetings, the role of the Risk manager is to stay a proactive risk management plan in compliance with the provisions of federal, state and local statutes regulations. The risk manager is also responsible for developing, implementing and evaluating the outcome of the risk management plan. This performance is coordinated with the performance and quality improvement. In addition, the particular description of the risk manager’s responsibilities is approved by Hospital governing body. Roles of personnel All staff within ABC Hospital is considered important to the operation of the Hospital in case of risk. The role of Hospital staff is to understand and be knowledgeable about the good service and high quality of service provided to the patients based on the risk management plan. In addition, staff is educated on the basis of safety rules and while incidents happen, they are able to analyze the event and then improve them. Sample RM plan Prepared by: Approved by: Version: Date: Introduction: Plan purpose: Goals and objectives of the plan: Scope of the plan: Roles and responsibilities for risk management team: Plan schedule: Recommendations: Emergency plans for the hospital The risk management plan for ABC Hospital should also contain the emergency plan that is useful under the conditions of emergency and is usually activated by additional professionals and managers. They, consequently, are required to meet the response need. The Hospital safety officer is responsible for management, coordination, which includes the development, evaluation and revision of such emergency management plan. In order to ensure the plan to be integrated with the Hospital community, the safety officer acts as a chairperson of the emergency planning committee. The safety officer is also a member of the Hospital emergency management subcommittee of the Hospital. Contingency plans As a preventive measure for the specific emergency situations that can threaten the routine activities of the Hospital, a risk manager develops a contingency plan on the basis of hazard vulnerability analysis. Personnel are taught this plan in the initial stages. If the emergency occurs, a Hospital system that deals with the emergency incident command is activated and this command center establishes coordination activities in order to resolve a problem. The ABC Hospital develops a contingency plan to guide mass casualty incidents, situations with hostages, civil disturbances and incidents with hazard materials. A plan is developed to enable staff to understand how to react in case of biological terrorism, natural disasters such as tornado, fire evacuation, infant abduction and mutual aid. To enable every employee, the newcomers and existed staff to be aware of contingency plan, it is outlined in ABC Hospital policy. Structure of the department According to the risk management plan, the Chairperson of Quality management system approves the integrated risk management plan and its risk manager through communication to all staff. The responsible persons are appointed within such departments as Quality Assurance, Blood Bank, Infection Control, Safety and Security, Physicians, among Nurses, Legal Counsel Professional Liability Committee and Medical Records. These members are responsible for risk management within the scope of their departments and are able to ensure all their staff to be aware of Hospital policies, procedures, any processes that are aimed to support and comply with the integrated risk management. Recommendations As the area of healthcare is among the most important to people, adherence to norms of safety and risk management should be set as the highest priority. To ensure services were provided in accordance to the Hospital rules, policies and regulations, risk management plan will enable to better understand how to react in particular situations and ensure good quality as well. For that purpose, risk managers should be taught and prepared to meet challenges as with the new staff acquaintance with the norms and rules of risk management, but also to ensure the current staff to fully realize the plan of risk management, emergency and contingency plans implemented by the Hospital. Recommendations: to ensure staff is aware of their responsibilities; all levels of staff are educated with the risk management plan as well as emergency and contingency plans; conduct evaluation tests and assessments on the regular basis. Conclusion Within any hospital environment, risk management is now the integral and one of the most important parts of the present day healthcare institutions. However, there are still shortcomings as to the awareness of developing countries in the concept and process of risk management. It is more often that law suits against healthcare establishments appear in the developed countries, which call for consideration that in these countries, healthcare providers know how to give better services so their reputation and profitability would not suffer. Hence, it is recommended that hospitals and healthcare institutions paid more attention analyzing, implementing and improvement of risk management plans and programs in order to better protect their assets and minimize losses among patients. References Kavaler, F. and Spiegel, A., (2003). Risk management in health care institutions: a strategic approach, Jones& Bartlett Learning, Risk management handbook for health care organizations, (2011). American Society for Healthcare Risk Management, 3 Vol. set, John Wiley & Sons Read More