When you think about healthcare risk, what comes to mind; a mistake, an accident, patient harm or even death? We want to challenge the way you think about risk and shift the focus from harm to ‘prevention’. Even though we know challenging situations may occur, building an effective risk strategy for your organization is perhaps the best way to impact the prevalence of a bad outcome, even in high-risk areas.
Healthcare is changing exponentially and keeping up with the changes can be daunting. Many regulatory agencies, as well as professional organizations use a variety of methods to measure outcomes. For the most part these measures have not had the impact on patient safety or decreased the potential for harm as well as expected. Therefore, healthcare leaders still find themselves fighting fires every day, causing a reactive versus proactive approach to managing risk.
To facilitate a preventive risk strategy, our risk management consultants have embarked on a year-long strategy to equip our insureds with tools to assess and strengthen their programs rather than just giving them one more compliance checklist to follow. By rethinking risk and building a focused strategy, an organization can set itself apart. Built on ‘evidenced-based’ best practices, our preventive tools and resources are designed to complement what an organization is already doing (or should be doing) to focus on safety. Rethinking risk in this way encompasses process improvement and accountability that can lead to positive results for patients as well as the healthcare team. Jim Peppenhorst, from Whitfield Regional Hospital puts it like this, “These strategies are aligned perfectly with what our team has been talking about for full development here related to patient experience, patient safety, and employee awareness. I’m very excited about this opportunity as we progress through 2021”.
The “2021 Risk Prevention Strategy” process provides a multi-faceted approach to building an effective risk prevention program. Based on six risk focus areas, which are discussed HERE, these interventions can position an organization to move the needle toward exemplary patient care and safety. Facets of the strategy include a virtual setting for education where we will explore both regulatory and compliance processes, as well as best-practices for each focus area. Following each session, participants will be equipped with resources and tools that can be easily adopted into actionable initiatives. This multi-faceted approach offers the tools needed to embrace a culture of proactive risk prevention, improving the likelihood for long-term success.
Inspirien’s approach to risk prevention works for all sizes and domains of healthcare, from large urban hospitals to small rural facilities. Regardless of the entity size or type, all can benefit to build practices and accountability to ensure risk prevention becomes a new way of life. Ultimately, addressing these six risk focus areas that are low cost, high reward can reduce medical malpractice claims for a win-win model of patient safety. And then the question of “What do you think of when you think of healthcare risk?” can be a positive story instead of a scary thought.
For more information on our Risk Management services or about how to become an Inspirien partner, email our team at riskmanagment@inspirien.net.