ECRI Institute Survey Identifies Top Risk Management Concerns for 2011
Free report can help hospitals address and prioritize these risks.
Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, January 19, 2011—ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improve patient care, reveals the top 10 concerns facing healthcare risk managers for 2011.
Again this year, the Healthcare Risk Control System’s membership survey of challenges confronting healthcare risk managers reflects the diversity of tasks on risk managers’ plates. The survey results are available as a free download from ECRI Institute’s web site.
The themes that emerge from this year’s list involve:
- Response to federal initiatives (e.g., electronic health record [EHR] implementation, federal “clawback” initiatives, and nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions)
- Job security (e.g., integration of risk management, quality, and safety; demonstration of risk management value; and decline in risk management resources)
- Ongoing, day-to-day risk management topics (e.g., provider communication, disruptive practitioner behavior, event management, and falls reduction)
Risk managers interviewed about the findings agreed that the list reflects today’s risk managers’ concerns.
“These are the issues risk managers are facing,” says Kathleen Shostek, R.N., A.R.M., B.B.A., CPHRM, FASHRM, senior risk management analyst at ECRI Institute and a board member of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM).
“Day to day, one of these issues floats to the top. These are all the risk issues we deal with in risk management,” says Ellen Hampton, A.R.M., CPHRM, director, risk and safety management, Salem Health, a two-hospital system in Salem, Oregon. Hampton adds that she finds some support when reading the list. “It’s validating to see that others are dealing with the same concerns that I have.”
“Additionally, if any items are not among a risk manager’s concerns, the list provides an opportunity to reassess priorities,” says Sue Boisvert, B.S.N., M.H.S.A., senior risk manager at Medical Mutual Insurance Company of Maine (Portland, Maine). “The list helps identify whether something should be on my radar screen.”
For a limited time, healthcare professionals can obtain the complete list and its recommendations by downloading the article, “Risk Managers Identify Top Concerns for 2011,” 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.
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.