¶ … Risk Management Issue Over the last several years, the issue of patient safety has been increasingly brought to the forefront. Part of the reason for this, is because a number of high profile accidents have taken place. This has increase the chances that patient will develop complications. Evidence of this can be seen by looking no further than the most commonly reported cases involving malpractices lawsuits to include: incidents involving misdiagnosis, prescription medication errors, Obstetrics and surgery. As, these different events account for a total of: 62% of all medical malpractice cases. ("CRICO Coverage," 2011) This is significant, because it shows how the underlying risks facing many health care organizations have risen exponentially. In the case of the health organization we are studying, they have taken different steps to address these kinds of issues that they are facing. To fully understand the overall scope of their strategy requires: looking at the procedures that are in place, how they were able to rectify the problem, studying other methods that were used in similar facilities and comparing the results with each other. Together, these different elements will provide the greatest insights, as to how various health care organizations can implement a risk management procedure that will tackle the issues of patient safety.

The current steps that have been: set in place or discussed to address the issue.

The basic procedure that is being used is to: identify and improve the quality care that is being provided is through a survey that is conducted. This is a combination of a number of different questioners that have been utilized to: create an effective standard for understanding the problems surrounding patient safety. As different government agencies / health organizations began to work together to address these challenges to include: Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (HCAHPS), The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This is important, because this survey can provide a basic foundation for understanding those issues that could be affecting the facility.

As a result, the hospital will conduct these procedures through two semi- annual reviews. These will be sent out to customers about: the overall quality of care at the facility. Once this takes place, HR personal will examine the different findings and will make specific recommendations about how this can be addressed. This is significant, because this basic procedure is what the hospital is using to help mitigate these risks as much as possible.

Discuss how your agency determined a path to remedy the problem.

To remedy the problem, the agency plans on using the combined survey to gain a greater understanding of what issues are affecting patient safety. As there are three different objectives that will be accomplished during this study to include:

It allows health care professionals to understand what issues are most important and how the facility ranks in comparison with other hospitals.

These kinds of public reporting standards will create new incentives for health care organizations to: improve the overall quality of care that is being provided.

This will help to increase accountability at the facility by: ensuring that there is adequate public oversight of these different areas.

Based upon my experience in working at the facility, these surveys can be useful in: helping to prevent a hospital from potentially losing millions of dollars down the road. As, the issue of safety can have an: effect on the accreditation and possible reimbursements for a variety of procedures. Those organizations that are practicing the highest safety standards will be able to mitigate these risks. As, these procedures will ensure that there is a measureable way to determine how this is affecting patient safety. Once this occurs, it will make certain that the facility will not face potential losses from accreditation and reimbursements.

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The first one took place at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. They began using a program of having random safety audits to improve quality. The way the procedure worked is there was checklist that was created for 36 problem areas. This caused the staff to become aware of these issues. When the checklist was implemented as a part of the procedures the number of errors declined by 75%. This is significant, because it is showing how this method helped to address the same kind of problems that our facility was wrestling with. (Gray, 2005, pp. 284 -- 289)
The second method was used at different ICU units throughout the State of Michigan. These procedures involved staff members working together on various collaborative efforts to address quality of care issues. The way that this was accomplished was by have each of the different employees take a safety attitude examination. This is when they would discuss their views about: issues of safety and their perceptions on them. Once this took place, researchers began to tackle the various challenges they discovered. This was accomplished by: having everyone in a facility work with those individuals, who are showing the highest probabilities in not address these issues. The results of using this approach were that the underlying issues of quality improved by 25% in one year. This is because, the increased amounts of collaboration allowed these facilities to: address safety challenges and support those individuals who could be affected by them. (Watson, 2008, pp. 207 -- 221)

The third method was used by the University of Minnesota Health Systems. They found that the majority of: their staff was working over 12 hours a day and that this was contributing to an increasing number of errors. This was becoming problematic, as the facility needed to be able to lower these incidents to improve quality. To address these issues they conducted a study and found that this accounted for 40% the mistakes were made. This is because various staff members were often overworked. At which point, they began to implement different procedures that can be used to reduce these issues such as: flexible scheduling. The results were that these mistakes were reduced by: as much as 32% and that the underlying quality of care improved dramatically. This is important, because it showing how: the levels of stress and exhaustion can have an impact upon quality. (Rogers, 2004, pp. 202 -- 212)

Compare your results to the process being developed at your agency.

The results that we found are identifying different strategies that can be used to: improve the underlying amounts of care. In the case of our facility, it is believed that the survey approach will help administrators to increase quality. This is because this is enhancing accountability and transparency, which will give the public greater choices about health care service providers.

While, the random safety checks have been shown to: increase the overall amounts of quality by 75%. This is because, these different procedures created a shift in how everyone was focusing on the problem. As, the checklist served as a failsafe method of: being able to address issues that can affect the quality of care that is being provided. In this aspect, this technique produced superior results in comparison with all of the others.

The collaborative method was shown to be effective, because it would create a change in the environment. Where, everyone was conscious about: the issues and the role that they were playing to address these underlying challenges. This helped to tackle the problems of quality by: showing a reduction of 25% in one year (for medical errors). While this may not be as an effective strategy (in comparison with others), this approach has been shown to be a tool to address these issues.

The third method of reducing staff hours was…