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4 pages/≈2200 words
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APA
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Health, Medicine, Nursing
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Essay
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:
Risk Management in Healthcare. Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay
Essay Instructions:
Details:
Select a health care organization in your community to conduct an interview with an appropriate risk management employee. The 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. Make sure to select an individual who can provide sufficient information regarding how that organization manages risk within its facility to answer the questions below.
In your interview, address the following:
Identification of the challenges the organization faces in controlling infectious diseases.
Risk management strategies used in the organization's infection control program, along with specific examples.
How the facility's educational risk management program addresses key professional issues, such as prevention of negligence, malpractice litigation, and vicarious liability.
Policies the facility has implemented that address managing emergency triage in high-risk areas of health care service delivery.
Strategies the facility utilizes to monitor and maintain its risk management program.
Post-interview, compose a 750-1,000 word summary analysis of the interview to include the questions above as well as the following elements:
A brief assessment of the organization's risk management program, including what works well and what could work better (the pros and cons).
Action steps you would take to improve the program. Select one area and provide your rationale and possible steps required to implement your suggestion.
Essay Sample Content Preview:
Risk Management in Healthcare
Name
Institution
Due Date
Risk Management in Healthcare
Risk management in healthcare is a concept that was introduced decades ago. Singh and Ghatala (2012) note that it was introduced “following court decisions which established the corporate liability of the hospital for the quality of care and holding medical staff liable for quality of care.” Today, risk management is a prerequisite for all healthcare centers, and other organizations are also tasked with establishing risk management programs. Singh and Ghatala define it as “the systematic process of identifying, evaluating, and addressing potential and actual risk.” In employing or activating their risk management programs, healthcare centers are continually working to ensure they safeguard the safety of their patients. Having been tasked in ensuring that their patients’ safety is maintained, healthcare centers are thus expected to update their programs continually.
But why do organizations and healthcare facilities have to be prepared. Well, one word appears to prevalent in risk management literature, and that is risk. Risk can be defined as the uncertainty that arises as a result of a particular occurrence, event, or situation. Risk management programs are thus in place to help deal with the unknown. Being exposed to the uncertainty is why many organizations work hard to make sure they have a risk management program in place. Being subject to a loss because of the event or situation could mean incredible losses or death if a healthcare facility is involved.
Importance of Risk Management Programs in Healthcare
As already indicated, other organizations do have their risk management programs in place. However, unlike healthcare centers, their goal is often to prevent losses and to ensure swift continuity after the occurrence of a mishap. On the other hand, for healthcare centers, risk management programs are implemented for the same purpose. However, the stakes are significantly higher in that the success or failure of the program means life or death. So, it is crucial that a healthcare center has all its units ready to respond to any issue swiftly.
A risk management program in healthcare helps in ensuring:
* A healthcare center experiences fewer errors.
* Reduces the number of inappropriate services that could be offered in a healthcare center.
* Reduces the rate of readmissions in the center.
* Reduces the number of patient complaints.
* Improved care is offered.
* Mandatory federal or government regulations are adhered to.
Interview Questions
I will be conducting the interview and the respondent will be Miss Nancy from one of the Arizona Southern hospitals.
Me: Hello Miss Nancy. I am honored and grateful that you have taken the time to speak with me.
Nancy: Hello and you are welcome. It is in our interest to speak with those who appear interested and appreciative of what we are doing here. So, the pleasure is all mine.
Me: Thank you. I will not keep you waiting but will head straight to what brought me here. I am here to talk about the risk management program in this hospital and its efficacy in helping avert certain risks including and more specifically the threat posed by infectious diseases.
Nancy: Okay. Am ready to answer any of your questions.
Me: What are some of the challenges the organization faces in controlling infectious diseases?
Nancy: There are several challenges with one of them being infection surveillance inefficiencies. Like many healthcare facilities, our surveillance methods are manual, and often those involved with infection prevention spend hours going through paper reports while trying to find commonalities. In the end, these reports end up being delayed, thus limiting any prevention measures or strategies. Additionally, there is slow response. My hope is that we can get funding to help deal with all the inefficiencies in our hospital.
The second challenge would be the tight budgets that we are forced to grapple with. Well, responsibility without budgetary authority is something many of those in healthcare have to deal with. As a person who works as an infection preventionist, it is difficult to approve or request for improved systems to help in infection prevention and surveillance because of the tight budgets. So, in the end, we fall short, and the repercussions are that we have an increase in the number of those affected by infectious diseases.
Me: Are those the only challenges or the are others but ones that are not as impactful to your response procedures?
Nancy: There are others and one that I forgot is the shortage of nurses. During normal procedures, we may seem full and not in need of more staff members. However, when disaster strikes, we always find ourselves short. With healthcare-associated infections, the threat could spread faster if we are short. So, shortage of staff is a big challenge.
Me: Okay, thank you for that. But as a hospital, one would expect that you have some kind of strategy or a risk management program which you use to help manage healthcare-associated infections, right?
Nancy: Yes, we do have a risk management program.
Me: Kindly take me through the strategies you employ.
Nancy: Well, we use a variety of risk management strategies which range from high-budget initiatives to low-budget initiatives. The first one is hand hygiene. At every stop or turn in the hospital, you will find a sign that reminds staff members, guests, and patients to practice hand hygiene. This is a low-budget initiative that works wonders for those who do not know.
Another strategy is environmental cleansing. To prevent healthcare-associated infections, a hospital must invest in making sure that its surfaces are always clean and free from bacteria that might lead to infections. Certain bacteria are known to exist and survive on environmental surfaces and thus transmit certain diseases. So, our facility often disinfects surfaces, while trying to reduce instances of infection.
The third strategy is vaccinations which need no explanation.
The fourth is surveillance. Surveillance helps us gather data which may include some of the infection patterns within our facility. This information is quite crucial for us and has been integral in helping us ensure that some infectious diseases are controlled.
The final strategy is the use of scree...
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