Risk Management

Risk management paper

Risk management is defined as a program directed toward identifying of, evaluating of, and taking corrective action against potential risks that could lead to injury of patients, staff, or visitors. It is a planned program of loss prevention and liability control, and its main purpose is to identify, analyze, and evaluate risks and then to develop a plan for reducing the frequency and severity of accidents and injuries (Decker and Sullivan, 2001). Risk management is a continuous daily program of detection, education, and intervention. This paper will describe the risk management issues at Great River Medical Center as they pertain to medication errors, and will describe the methods that are currently taking place to address this issue.

Identifying Potential Risk

Identifying potential risks for accident, injury, or financial loss requires formal and informal communication that involves all organizational departments in the facility. The risk management department at Great River Medical Center conducted on study on medication errors in the facility during preparation for a JACHO inspection. During this study, they discovered that medication errors had increased steadily over a 2 year period, and that many of them were because of illegibility reasons. The two most common legibility reasons included reading the initial order and reading the medication on the hand written medication sheet.

According to Michael R. Cohen, MS, FASHP, from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, poor handwriting is the leading cause of medication errors. Poor handwriting can blur the distinction between two medications that have similar names. And, many drug names sound similar, especially when spoken over the telephone, enunciated poorly, or mispronounced.

At Great River Medical Center, this was also found to be one of the leading causes of medication errors. The inability of the nurse to read the written order and the inability to read the written medication sheet