Risk management strategies are a part and parcel of any organization’s operations; however, the issue becomes increasingly important once being introduced to the healthcare environment (Baig, 2010). Facilitating the safety of both patients and the staff is a difficult yet manageable task; however, because of the numerous and rather recondite factors that the healthcare environment comprises, the provision of complete safety is impossible, as Stanford Online (2011) explains.
The video in question is obviously aimed at engaging the healthcare service staff into a dialogue concerning the new safety options and the means for enhancing the security of both the employees and the patients within the environment of a typical healthcare facility. The fact that the video is targeted at the specified demographics is denoted in the very introduction of the narration: by enhancing the significance of the speakers’ experience in the workplace security and safety of the staff (Stanford Online, 2011), the narrator makes it obvious that healthcare service managers in general and health and safety managers, in particular, should pay special attention to the program in question.
As far as the second video is concerned, its target audience clearly includes engineering safety advisors apart from health and safety managers, as the video under consideration obviously emphasizes the technical aspect of the risk management process: “Let’s see how the implementation of technology in the state hospital 2020 ensures safer care” (Pytte, 2012, 00:00:37–00:00:44).
The latter video, in fact, is more helpful to the creation of a risk management program than the first one, as it provides a more detailed list of the actions that must be taken in order to maintain proper levels of security within a healthcare service. For instance, the video teaches in a very efficient and understandable manner about the significance of contacting healthcare services timely by promoting the use of a wristband “for tracing and recording of hospital activities” (Pytte, 2012, 00:01:04–00:01:06). In other words, clearly being instruction and a short introduction into the basics of healthcare engineering, the specified video informs the audience of a specific set of actions. As a result, it fits the scope of a healthcare safety program much easier than a supposedly informative yet quite generic video.
Speaking of which, the information provided by Stanford Online (2011) is by no means useless, yet its significance is devalued greatly by the generalized statements and the abundance of information. Though clearly being significant for a healthcare safety program, it is comparatively hard to factor in. Therefore, it could be used as a tool for enhancing awareness regarding the subject matter gradually. In other words, it is suggested that the video in question should be split into several parts, each being related to a different aspect of managing safety in the healthcare setting (Hoppe, Mitchell, Venditti & Bunting, 2012). The fact that the narrator goes as far as drafting a detailed diagram of a safe patient handling program at Stanford (Stanford Online, 2011, 00:22:49), as well as stresses the impact of risk management on value protection and value creation (Stanford Online, 2011, 00:22:24).
Even though Stanford Online (2011) shows in a rather clear manner that eliminating every possibility of a threat to either the patients or the hospital staff is a practically unattainable goal, the video shows that the threat to the safety of all those involved may be reduced significantly with the help of a proper distribution of roles and responsibilities within the organization, as well as a detailed list of the steps that a healthcare professional must undertake in order to ensure the safety of the patients. The solution that Pytte (2012) suggests as a tool for managing safety within healthcare setting is rather clever as well; however, the integration of technology into the landscape of the healthcare environment may take much time, whereas the approach suggested by the Stanford Online (2011) seems more applicable and expeditious.
A closer look at the way, in which both videos offer the audience the information concerning healthcare safety, will reveal that the risks of facing an emergency within the specified setting may be inhibited and that the premises of a relatively safe environment may be facilitated (Rodak, 2013). The scale, to which the Stanford institution enhances their security, is truly impressive, as the areas of study listed by the narrator embrace every single factor that may possibly jeopardize the safety of either the patients or the staff members (e.g., Biomedical Informatics, Electrical Engineering, to name a few (Stanford Online, 2011, 00:34:23)). Pytte (2012), in his turn, spends comparatively less time on the description part, yet offers an innovative approach, which may reinvent the entire concept of healthcare safety. Therefore, both videos are of huge significance to the issue in question.
Risk management is a complex task that presupposes raising awareness, instructing all those involved and incorporating the latest technological advances so that the smallest chance of the patient or the employee to be injured, traumatized, etc. could be reduced to zero. Despite the fact that providing the patients and the employees with complete security is barely possible, an enhancement of the current strategy with the help of a structured approach and the incorporation of the latest technology may possibly reduce the threat and create a safer healthcare environment.
Reference List
Baig, N. (2010). Risk management in healthcare. SlideShare. Web.
Hoppe, M., Mitchell, J. L., Venditti, E. G. & Bunting, B. Jr. (2012). Serious safety events: Getting to zero. Washington, DC: American Society for Healthcare Risk Management.
Pytte, M. (2012). Healthcare technology outlook 2020 – the safe hospital. YouTube. Web.
Rodak, S. (2013). 4 Best practices for hospital risk management. Becker’s Hospital. Web.
Stanford Online. (2011). Taking healthcare ERM to the next level – strategic decisions and risk management program. YouTube. Web.