Risk Management Forum

Four Risk Management myths:

1. “What patients and families don’t know won’t hurt them,”
2. “If you haven’t been sued, you must be fine”,
3. “Serious adverse outcomes are so infrequent/don’t happen to me” and
4. “We have insurance, why worry?”

National statistics tell another story. Proper disclosure of adverse events to patients and families in fact decreases the likelihood of litigation. Adverse events happen every day. A physician is likely to get sued at least once in his or her career, and insurance coverage does not solve the problem.

As a physician, you know that not all harm is avoidable. You know that every medical intervention carries with it the risk that the patient will be harmed instead of healed. The goal of Risk Management is to help you and others like the hospital to reduce the risk of harm up front by anticipating the risk and taking steps to prevent the risk from occurring. If harm occurs, Risk Management seeks to manage and minimize the consequences, both to the patient and the health care provider.

Upcoming columns here in DOCLine will share with you high risk practice issues such as communication, test results management, referral loop closure, “handoffs” and noncompliant patients. We will present adverse event reporting by including actual events and near miss events. We plan to cover causes of medical malpractice lawsuits against hospitals, as well as educational information regarding error reduction, effective documentation and advice for navigating the lawsuit process.

Effective risk management depends upon our collaborative and informative relationship with you as the provider of care to patients. To be most helpful to you, we would welcome suggestions or questions about specific subjects that concern you. If you would like immediate information, please contact Jeannine.Foran@danhosp.org.