Introduction
In the context of research and risk assessment, five main types of hazards that a healthcare organization may encounter are highlighted for consideration. These include injuries, accidents, falls, and medical or surgical errors. The likelihood of these events is considered in terms of their occurrence after the patient has been admitted and during their treatment.
Thus, each risk must be analyzed per specific criteria to determine its degree of importance and set priorities. Their analysis considers the possibility of reducing the potential and mitigating the possible consequences of specific and additional adverse incidents with technology. In addition, internal and external evaluation methods for monitoring and tracking benchmarks are analyzed. The importance of correctly categorizing potential hazards to patients and healthcare providers is significant in the medical field.
Analysis Scores and Risk Criteria
The rating and analysis score of each of the selected risks is selected to be determined by three main factors: the probability of occurrence in the current environment, the impact, and the total risk score, which is the final result. At the same time, in further assessment, there may be a need to introduce a third evaluation criterion, current impact, which would require a specific analysis of the existing situation with each of the risks. In the context of this work, this factor is not substantial and remains unassigned, which excludes it from the calculation of the score in the study (How risk assessment scores are calculated, 2022). The criticality of this indicator lies in its strong influence on the final score. If there is no current impact, the overall score may equate to zero, and if the effect is high, the overall score will likewise be significantly inflated.
The risk of injury is moderately high, given the control and environment of the medical facility. Its impact may also be minor or moderate because of the softening and non-traumatic nature of the treatment processes. The likelihood of an accident depends on technological failure or human error and, in the context of evaluation, is the lowest of all the listed risks. However, its degree of impact can vary, resulting in a moderate overall risk.
Falls are hazardous in interactions with elderly patients, and their probability is medium, with a potentially high level of consequence, which also accounts for the moderate overall rate. Medical and surgical errors due to trained personnel have moderate and low probabilities, respectively, with high levels of exposure. Thus, the overall score of these risks is close to the highest for the organization and patients.
Risk Tolerance Levels and Prioritization
In the first place are the risks of surgical and medical errors, the likelihood and consequences of which cannot be accepted and ignored. Such cases may require immediate intervention and threaten patient life and health. Additional reporting systems need to be implemented to control and monitor the underlying causes that can lead to them.
Staff education and supervision by supervisors are maintained at the highest possible level, making it easier to deal with risks. In addition, clinical decision support systems and electronic medical records contribute to counteraction. Cross-team checks and staged reconciliation with treatment plans are implemented to reduce human error.
The second highest priority is falling, which is especially dangerous for older patients. Equipment signaling the patient in the chair or bed and motion sensors are designed to deal with the consequences, with special instructions acting as a preventive role (Yang et al., 2020). Injuries with their risk score are on the next step and include work-related injuries. The Health and Safety Committee can review reports on such incidents because the employees will most likely be exposed to this risk.
Nevertheless, focusing on the main hazards should not detract from monitoring and preparedness to deal with accidents. Various accidents can be included in this category, and due to rarity, the location and extent of damage cannot be fully predicted. Assured technical integrity of equipment and personnel training are the main factors to counteract this least prioritized risk. The level of acceptability of current risks is at an acceptable level only for injuries and accidents because of their low frequency.
At the same time, the characteristic problem is the poor predictability of these two types. The other specific types of risks, higher on the list of priorities for counteraction, have several factors contributing to their increased likelihood. For example, an employee with a history of making inevitable mistakes or demonstrating insufficient knowledge of correct coding is a weak link in these problems. In addition, elderly patients, especially those with mobility and physical, mental, or psychological problems, are most at risk of falling and require maximum supervision.
Mitigation of Additional Risks
The risks of collateral errors, partially related to those listed above, can be mitigated mainly in advance with modern technology. As subspecies of medical errors, inaccuracies in patient data, deficiencies in medical coding of equipment, and access to records are susceptible to several methods of countermeasures. To do so, it is worth separating the substitute categories and selecting the most effective preventative measures.
Medical facility employees are sparsely insured against coding errors in patient data, equipment, and other information bases. However, monitoring responsible individuals’ use of CAC, or computer-assisted coding, which uses special algorithms to isolate terminology and verify its truth, can reduce this likelihood (Campbell & Giadresco, 2020). In addition, the coding should be checked for full compliance with norms and existing working tools before new software and hardware are used.
Access to the patient record is related to the problem of combining privacy and convenience for cross-team treatment when needed. It can be accomplished by implementing unified databases linked to the medical facility, mobile apps, and an online portal in the form of a website. With a patient account, they can check and monitor all data themselves, and the versatility of the database ensures timely updates and ease of access with no information leaks. Errors in patient data can further be reduced by universalizing the account and comprehensive control and rechecking of centralized information by all concerned (Atasoy et al., 2019). Electronic health records are one facet of such a system, which still lacks universality.
Monitoring and Tracking Approaches
Required basic methods for assessing risk indicators are feedback and surveys to help identify negative trends at various stages. Employees’ and patients’ opinions can outline a weak area to which efforts should be directed to avoid danger. It is essential to involve professional analysts or computer systems designed to collect and verify all possible data. Such internal work identifies causes and patterns of incidents, information on the specifics of which can be added from external sources to expand the analysis. Risk management strategies also need to be dynamic and focused on relevant metrics.
An incident reporting system should include both a database and appropriately trained personnel. Ethical-moral training and mental state monitoring of medical staff is essential to avoid ad hoc or accidental withholding of data. Such a system helps track and identify incident patterns and, in some cases, can provide predictions and levels of current risk (Smith & Plunkett, 2019).
Moreover, electronic dashboards and trend visualization improve the reporting process and subsequent analysis. An additional external method to be mentioned is benchmarking, in which each area of the institution is compared with the best performance of the corresponding activity in the industry (Beaussier et al., 2020). National or global standards, the adherence to which should be sought and achieved, contribute to risk reduction and a global improvement in the quality of work and patient safety.
Conclusion
Thus, in analyzing and classifying risks and possible methods to counteract them, the criticality of a detailed approach to information and the formation of correct strategies depending on the institution’s goals becomes apparent. According to the established scale of danger and probability, the priority of preventive actions and readiness for proactive and reactive steps should be organized. Full consideration of the risks to the life and health of all parties involved in the healthcare process is mandatory for the successful functioning of the medical institution and the development of the medical services sector as a whole.
References
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Beaussier, A.-L., Demeritt, D., Griffiths, A., & Rothstein, H. (2020). Steering by their own lights: Why regulators across Europe use different indicators to measure healthcare quality. Health Policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 124(5), 501–510. Web.
Campbell, S., & Giadresco, K. (2020). Computer-assisted clinical coding: A narrative review of the literature on its benefits, limitations, implementation and impact on clinical coding professionals. Journal of the Health Information Management Association of Australia, 49(1), 5–18. Web.
How risk assessment scores are calculated. (2022). IBM. Web.
Smith, A. F., & Plunkett, E. (2019). People, systems and safety: Resilience and excellence in healthcare practice. Anaesthesia, 74(4), 508–517. Web.
Yang, X., Ren, X., Chen, M., Wang, L., & Ding, Y. (2020). Human posture recognition in intelligent healthcare. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1437(1). Web.