Instructions:
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 vector, etc.), and identify how these align with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards.
Challenges the organization faces in managing and controlling high-risk health care (e.g., infectious diseases, nuclear medicine, abortion, class 4 narcotics/opioids, etc.), and include how cultural and religious beliefs affect the provision of patient care.
Strategies the facility utilizes to monitor, evaluate, and maintain compliance within its risk management program.
After conducting the interview, compose a 750‐1,000-word summary analysis of the interview that includes the prompts 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.
My Interview:
Hernandez Valdez Jr, Miguel (Associate Manager, Pharmacy Technician For Banner Estrella Medical Center)
Risk management strategies used in the organization’s risk control program, along with specific examples.
Our hospital utilizes barcode assisted technology to support every step in our medications procurement and administration process. Barcode verification is performed from when medication is received from our vendor, to order verification, and to patient administration. Our facilities run daily reports to ensure all employees, regardless of discipline, are compliant with barcode validation and that no steps are being overridden/circumvented.
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.
Our hospital addresses risks issues proactively and retroactively. Our facilities assigns annual learning curriculum to educate staff on professional, legal, and ethical issues and also provides education on best practices to proactively address possible negligence and malpractice. By continuously educating our staff, we are minimizing liability. When an issue does occurs, our facilities addresses these concerns both systemically and locally. Our facilities investigates the root cause of the issue and develops a best practice to prevent this issue from re-occurring. If the issue is more system wide or complex, then our system risk and safety team will assist with developing a practice and disseminating any information, and/or education.
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 vector, etc.), and identify how these align with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards.
Our health system has developed multiple policies that address emergency triaging. These policies are usually system wide but often focus on certain disciplines of healthcare such as nursing, environmental services, pharmacy, laboratory, etc. For instance, our facility has a general policy on personnel protective equipment that addresses the type of precautions, supplies, and equipment to be used for patient care in high risks areas. This was a heavily referenced policy during our COVID pandemic and helped with maintaining the overall safety and well-being of all our staff members and patients. Depending on the department, there may be additional policies and procedures relating to the same topic. For example, pharmacy adheres to an additional PPE policy that is focused on the department’s cleaning of hazardous spaces. These policies are often dictated by certain compliance measures such as annual masks fittings and education, as required by OSHA.
Challenges the organization faces in managing and controlling high-risk health care (e.g., infectious diseases, nuclear medicine, abortion, class 4 narcotics/opioids, etc.), and include how cultural and religious beliefs affect the provision of patient care.
One main challenge that our organization faces is navigating through national drug shortages. There are medications that are preferred agents for certain diseases, or disorders, and when these medications go on shortage we have to decide on the best alternative.
Strategies the facility utilizes to monitor, evaluate, and maintain compliance within its risk management program.
Our organization has a designated compliance team along with compliance officers for every facility. Our facility encourages all employees to report any compliance issues to our compliance officer, or via an anonymous tip line. If they are uncertain whether something is a compliance issue, we still encourage our employees to report the issue regardless. The compliance team will review all reports and investigate the issues to determine whether there is truly a compliance, or safety issue. Additionally, our compliance team assigns annual education to help maintain compliance and mitigate risks.
