Organizational Risk Management Interview
The purpose of this assignment is to gain real-world insight into how risk management programs operate within health care organizations.
Select a local health care organization where you can conduct an interview with an employee who is involved in risk management processes. This organization can be your current employer or a different health care facility in your community. Acute care, urgent care, large multi-provider private medical clinics, assisted living facilities, and community/public health clinical facilities are all ideal options to complete the requirements of this assignment. Select an individual who can provide sufficient information regarding how their organization manages risk within its facility to answer the questions below.
In your interview, address the following:
Risk management strategies used in the organization’s risk control program, along with specific examples.
How the facility’s educational risk management program addresses key professional, legal, and ethical issues, such as prevention of negligence, malpractice litigation, and vicarious liability.
Policies the facility has implemented that address how to manage emergency triage in high-risk areas of health care service delivery (e.g., narcotics inventories, declared pregnancy policies, blood-borne disease sector, etc.).
Challenges the organization faces in managing and controlling high-risk health care (e.g., infectious diseases, nuclear medicine, abortion, class 4 narcotics/opioids, etc.).
Strategies the facility utilizes to monitor, evaluate, and maintain compliance within its risk management program.
After conducting the interview, compose a 750â€1,000 word summary analysis of the interview that includes the questions above, in conjunction with the interviewee’s responses. In addition, include the following elements in your response:
An assessment of the organization’s risk management program, including how it attends to high-risk health care and legal concerns.
Action steps you would take to improve one area of the organization’s risk management program, along with your rationale for doing so.
Cite appropriate references as needed to support your statements and rationale.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
Sample Answer
Organization Risk Management Interview
Risk management is an essential component of modern healthcare practices. Hence, the student interviewed a nurse manager to get insights into their organization’s risk management programs, strategies, and policies. The interviewee works at a regional general hospital and oversees nursing duties in an acute care unit. He has been a nurse manager for seven years and is knowledgeable in various risk management issues.
Risk Management Strategies in Control Program
The interviewee stated that the facility has a vigilant risk control program. Its risk management strategies include assessment, prioritization, and investigation (S. Johnson, personal communication, Nov. 30, 2021). Assessment entails identifying and quantifying individual risks, while prioritization involves determining the more prominent risks (NEJM Catalyst, 2018). Finally, the facility investigates the risks’ causes and relationships. For instance, if there are growing concerns about missed/delayed care and nurses’ fatigue, the risk control program director evaluates the two, determines if they are related, and suggests a solution. If there is no causal relationship, they must choose what to address first, depending on severity and resource availability.
How to Address Professional, Legal, and Ethical Issues
The nurse manager states that the risk management educational control program emphasizes comprehensive medical documentation. Caregivers learn the importance of accurately recording their actions and findings. Therefore, they can use them to protect themselves and the hospital when a legal or ethical dispute occurs (S. Johnson, personal communication, Nov. 30, 2021). For example, if a patient sues the hospital for an adverse event arising from drug administration, the facility will look at the affected caregiver’s documents to determine liability. Suppose the patient had categorically told the caregiver that they are not allergic to some drug and had even taken it previously. The documentation of that interaction will protect the professional and the organization from legal liability (Pozgar, 2014, p. 60). However, if the documentation is missing or incomplete, the caregiver bears the burden for their lack of diligence.
Emergency Triage Policies
One of the essential policies in emergency triage services at the hospital’s acute care unit is establishing a healthcare decision-maker. Caregivers must quickly determine if the patient can make decisions regarding their health, and if not, identify an eligible party, e.g., a relative or friend. If none is available, the decision-making authority shifts to the senior-most clinicians available. The assignment of responsibility depends on the relevance of healthcare needs and the number of patients. Therefore, the policy eliminates the risk of delayed care due to caregivers’ indecision.
Challenges in High-risk Healthcare Management and Control
Healthcare risk management is a resource-intensive endeavor. Risk managers require an adequate supply of expertise, technology, and assorted equipment to mitigate risks in healthcare settings (Healthcare Financial Management Association, 2017). The interviewee shares a similar sentiment, stating how staffing issues impede the implementation of ideal risk management strategies. First, the facility cannot have enough numbers to optimize working hours, resulting in recurring fatigue among caregivers. Also, there is a financial limit to the number of additional staff the hospital can hire in a fiscal year. These numbers do not always match the demand, thereby limiting care quality and risk management’s effectiveness.
Compliance Monitoring, Evaluation, and Maintenance
Finally, the interviewee shared how the hospital handles patient compliance. He stated that caregivers perform personalized patient assessments to gauge their likeliness to comply with prescriptions. Factors such as financial status, demographics, family support, and general attitude towards healthcare or caregivers influence a person’s chances of adhering to medical directions (Rao et al., 2017). The clinicians look for these indicators and then implement appropriate measures. For instance, if a patient appears to respect a certain family member, the caregiver will use them to monitor and maintain compliance. Therefore, the hospital attempts to minimize interference unless the risks of non-compliance are severe.
Assessment
The interviewee’s responses presented a general idea of how the facility handles healthcare risks. First, the facility has a rather exhaustive healthcare risk management program. It assists caregivers through training, policymaking, and strategy implementation, to minimize the risks that befall patients. The program’s effectiveness mainly depends on resource availability, with staffing shortages being a key limitation. Regardless, the hospital strives to offer patients as high-quality care as possible.
Meanwhile, the hospital’s legal risk management is rather dynamic. A case-to-case evaluation appears to be the norm. Hence, they determine who bears responsibility for an adverse event depending on the available evidence. The educational risk management program helps caregivers prepare for such instances through proper documentation. Nevertheless, the lack of a definite legal risk mitigation process makes caregivers uncertain about their liability.
