ECRI Institute Survey Identifies Top Risk Management Challenges for 2010

Free report can help hospitals face these risks. 

Plymouth Meeting, PA, December 7, 2009 — ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, reveals the Top 10 Challenges for 2010 as identified by healthcare risk managers. A survey completed by members of ECRI Institute’s Healthcare Risk Control (HRC) System about the top challenges facing risk managers revealed a wide range of issues for the year ahead and beyond. The survey results are available for free download from ECRI Institute’s Web site.

Participating risk managers identified diverse priorities. Nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions and integration of risk management, quality, and patient safety were their top two challenges for 2010. Their 9th- and 10th-ranked challenges addressed effective event reporting systems and compliance with Medicare’s secondary-payer reporting requirements.

The survey, conducted in August 2009, asked risk managers to select up to 10 of the most challenging issues they expect to face in 2010 and beyond from a list of 25 choices. An underlying theme in the survey was the challenges brought on by the current recession and difficult U.S. economy. Challenges such as coping with nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions, demonstrating risk management’s value to the organization, and addressing a decline in risk management resources are on the top-10 list partly because of the economic conditions.

The article includes reactions to the survey’s findings from leaders in healthcare risk management. “What jumped out for me [in reviewing the results] was the variety of topics pulling risk managers in different directions,” says Roberta Carroll, R.N., A.R.M., CPCU, M.B.A., CPHQ, CPHRM, HEM, DFASHRM, senior vice president, healthcare risk management consulting service, Aon Healthcare. “Everyone is doing more with less,” she says in the article.

Nevertheless, Georgene Saliba, R.N., B.S.N., CPHRM, FASHRM, 2009 president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) and administrator of risk management and patient safety at Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, Pennsylvania, views the results positively. “Now, more than ever, you have a place in your organizations,” she tells risk managers in the article. “It’s important that your senior management and frontline staff understand the value you bring to your organizations.”

For a limited time, healthcare professionals can obtain the complete list and its recommendations by downloading the article, “Risk Managers Identify Top 10 Challenges for 2010,” at https://www.ecri.org/Forms/Pages/Risk_Managers_Top_10_Challenges.aspx.

The article, published in the Risk Management Reporter, was released in December 2009 to members of ECRI Institute’s Healthcare Risk Control System. For information about membership in the Healthcare Risk Control System, contact ECRI Institute by mail at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462-1298, USA; by telephone at (610) 825-6000, ext. 5891; by e-mail at clientservices@ecri.org; or by fax at (610) 834-1275. ECRI Institute’s European office can be contacted at info@ecri.org.uk, ECRI Institute’s Asia-Pacific office can be contacted at asiapacific@ecri.org, and ECRI Institute’s Middle Eastern office can be contacted at middleeast@ecri.org.

About ECRI Institute?
ECRI Institute (www.ecri.org), a nonprofit organization, dedicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to healthcare to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs, and processes are best to enable improved patient care. As pioneers in this science for more than 40 years, ECRI Institute marries experience and independence with the objectivity of evidence-based research. ECRI Institute is designated a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization and an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI Institute PSO, listed as a federally certified Patient Safety Organization by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, strives to achieve the highest levels of safety and quality in healthcare by collecting and analyzing patient safety information and sharing lessons learned and best practices.