Ask ECRI: Implementing Action Plans in Large Organizations

​​A member recently asked for information about implementing action plans in multiple hospitals across large organizations. ECRI's guidance article on managing a multifacility risk management program includes a section titled Corporate-Level Risk Management in a Large, Geographically Dispersed System, with the following recommendations:

Unlike with a small system in one location, it is inadvisable to largely standardize the risk management program of a large nationwide or geographically dispersed system or to manage the program using a line-management approach. The scale of such an undertaking would be too massive to be practical. Even when facilities are as little as 30 or 40 miles apart, if they are in separate communities, close coordination begins to cost more in complexity, travel time, and other factors than it saves in simplicity of management. The key is to understand (1) what can be standardized through corporate fiat; (2) what can be encouraged through communication, the offering of advice to individual facilities...