The Value and Purpose of Risk Management in Healthcare Organizations

 

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. But with the expanding role of healthcare technologies, increased cybersecurity concerns, the fast pace of medical science, and the industry’s ever-changing regulatory, legal, political, and reimbursement climate, healthcare risk management has become more complex over time.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.

Moreover, with the value-based care movement and today’s risk-bearing models such as bundled payments and CMS’s pay for performance programs, financial risk is increasingly shifting from payers to providers and requires a broader view of risk management. In May of 2017, Moody’s Investor Services released a report highlighting the link between risk management and a hospital’s operating margins: “Maintaining high clinical quality will increasingly impact financial performance and reduce the risk of brand impairment as reimbursement moves away from a fee-for-service model and towards a greater emphasis on value and outcomes.”Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.

For these reasons, hospitals and other healthcare systems are expanding their risk management programs from ones that are primarily reactive and promote patient safety and prevent legal exposure, to ones that are increasingly proactive and view risk through the much broader lens of the entire healthcare ecosystem.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.

For these reasons, hospitals and other healthcare systems are expanding their risk management programs from ones that are primarily reactive and promote patient safety and prevent legal exposure, to ones that are increasingly proactive and view risk through the much broader lens of the entire healthcare ecosystem.Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.

While members of the industry understand the significance of expanding risk management in healthcare beyond patient safety and medical liability, the transition has been slow. According to the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), “Despite the growing importance of programs today, and the raised awareness of their importance, many healthcare providers have been slow to adopt a more sophisticated approach . . . . The current state for most providers falls between ‘basic’ and ‘evolving’ maturities for ERM programs.”Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Essay.

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