A survey completed by members of ECRI Institute’s Healthcare Risk Control (HRC) System about the top challenges facing risk managers revealed a wide range of issues for the year ahead and beyond. The survey results are available for free download from ECRI Institute’s Web site.
Participating risk managers identified diverse priorities. Nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions and integration of risk management, quality, and patient safety were their top two challenges for 2010. Their 9th- and 10th-ranked challenges addressed effective event reporting systems and compliance with Medicare’s secondary-payer reporting requirements.
The survey, conducted in August 2009, asked risk managers to select up to 10 of the most challenging issues they expect to face in 2010 and beyond from a list of 25 choices. An underlying theme in the survey was the challenges brought on by the current recession and difficult U.S. economy.
Challenges such as coping with nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions, demonstrating risk management’s value to the organization, and addressing a decline in risk management resources are on the top-10 list partly because of the economic conditions.
The article includes reactions to the survey’s findings from leaders in healthcare risk management. “What jumped out for me [in reviewing the results] was the variety of topics pulling risk managers in different directions,” says Roberta Carroll, R.N., A.R.M., CPCU, M.B.A., CPHQ, CPHRM, HEM, DFASHRM, senior vice president, healthcare risk management consulting service, Aon Healthcare. “Everyone is doing more with less,” she says in the article.
Nevertheless, Georgene Saliba, R.N., B.S.N., CPHRM, FASHRM, 2009 president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) and administrator of risk management and patient safety at Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, Pennsylvania, views the results positively.
“Now, more than ever, you have a place in your organizations,” she tells risk managers in the article. “It’s important that your senior management and frontline staff understand the value you bring to your organizations.”