Issues in Health Care Risk Management

Medical malpractice suits rank among the top concerns for health care risk management professionals. Strategies developed at all levels of hospital functioning, limit the potential for these lawsuits to occur. This includes hiring only the finest medical staff to establishing safety protocols in the emergency room. While no system can be perfect, hospital risk managers create plans to mitigate medical errors and limit them as much as possible.

Ensuring Patient Safety

• The odds are that every hospital or other emergency medical facility across the country will experience patient mortality at some point. The issue in health care risk management--involves working to limit the patient mortality rate as much as possible and confine it to cases where medical staff do not become medically liable. Health care risk managers accomplish this task by creating patient safety protocols that include such things as informed consent for medical procedures and triage criteria for treatment to ensure that the sickest patients are treated first.

Proper Medical Staff

• Having criteria in place for the acceptable hiring of medical personnel can reduce the risks associated with health care according to the Harvard University Medical School. Ensuring that doctors, nurses and other medical staff are properly credentialed and licensed, works to reduce the risk of a medical mistake occurring because the professional wasn't qualified. Part of this strategy involves not hiring doctors with a high percentage of medical malpractice claims. Sound risk strategy also includes hiring credential managers who perform extensive license screenings and credential research on all medical personnel applicants.

Improving Safety in High Risk Areas

• According to the website for Harvard University Medical School, 62 percent of all malpractice claims come from four high risk areas: surgery, obstetrics, diagnosis and medication. Creating protocols that specifically address these four areas is a main concern in health care risk management. Strategies to limit risks in these areas can include devoting staff to ensure operating rooms are completely clean and only surgeons with appropriate safety ratings are permitted to perform procedures. Installing software that actively monitors patient medications and watches for potentially harmful interactions also prevents missteps in the delivering of medications and creating health care risk.