Question

Why is risk management such an important function for hospitals?

Some hospitals concurrently review records for deficiencies; others review retrospectively. Which is the best practice, and why?

What are your thoughts about the process of peer review?

Answer 1

Ans) Deployment of healthcare risk management has traditionally focused on the important role of patient safety and the reduction of medical errors that jeopardize an organization's ability to achieve its mission and protect against financial liability.

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Risk Management Best Practices.

1. Involve Stakeholders
In order to effectively manage risk, you should involve the stakeholders every step of the way, beginning with the initial Risk Assessment. Stakeholders can include people such as managers, clients, employees, shareholders, unions, etc. Many of these individuals may be key personnel and are key to your Risk Management processes. Each of these individuals represent different roles and responsibilities within your organization, thus giving you a holistic representation of all of the aspects of your business and each risk that comes along with it. Encourage stakeholders to help improve the continuous risk process by getting them involved in answering the question, “What keeps you up at night?”

2. Tone from the Top
An important step in any successful Risk Management program is creating a strong Risk Culture. Risk culture is defined as the values, beliefs, and attitudes about risks by a common group of people. It is the responsibility of management and the board of directors to clearly communicate the company’s culture to demonstrate what’s commonly known as the “tone from the top”. Management buy-in is critical to ensure that the importance of risk awareness is emanated throughout the entire organization. What is your company’s risk culture?

3. Communication
Communicating risks throughout your organization is another important aspect of Risk Management. Key risks, or risks that would have a high organizational impact, are identified and monitored by all departments. Any new risks are identified, assessed, and mitigated properly. You must create awareness of risks through communication to your entire organization.

4. Clear Risk Management Policies
Is your Risk Assessment policy clearly documented? Are the roles and responsibilities clearly defined? Are there clear policies and procedures defining mitigation of any and all identified risks? Do you have a Business Continuity Plan and an Incident Response Plan in place that map out how your organization will handle and overcome any unforeseen risks? Are these policies communicated effectively to all employees? Having these clear policies developed will help you identify all potential risks that could affect your business, the likelihood and impact of those risks, how you plan to mitigate and prevent those risks, and how you will monitor for and manage and new risks.

5. Continuous Monitoring
In order to manage your risks, you must first know what your risks are. Assuming you’ve already performed your initial risk assessment and have put the proper controls in place to mitigate and address these risks, the next crucial step is monitoring. Clear monitoring processes must be established to ensure that any and all risk mitigation efforts are working and are effective. This is a crucial aspect of any Risk Management process.

- Scholarly peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field, before a paper describing this work is published in a journal, conference proceedings or as a book.

Peer review has become fundamental in assisting editors in selecting credible, high quality, novel and interesting research papers to publish in scientific journals and to ensure the correction of any errors or issues present in submitted papers. Though the peer review process still has some flaws and deficiencies, a more suitable screening method for scientific papers has not yet been proposed or developed. Researchers have begun and must continue to look for means of addressing the current issues with peer review to ensure that it is a full-proof system that ensures only quality research papers are released into the scientific community.