Risk Managers Identify Top Concerns for 2011

Once again, the Healthcare Risk Control (HRC) System’s membership survey of challenges confronting healthcare risk managers reflects the diversity of tasks on risk managers’ plates. In HRC’s second year polling risk managers about their top concerns for the coming year and beyond, respondents echoed the findings from last year’s list by selecting a wide range of issues.

The themes that emerge from this year’s list involve response to federal initiatives (e.g., electronic health record EHR implementation, federal clawback initiatives, and nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions), job security (e.g., integration of risk management, quality, and safety; demonstration of risk management value; and decline in risk management resources), and ongoing, day-to-day risk management topics (e.g., provider communication, disruptive practitioner behavior, event management, and falls reduction).

Risk managers interviewed about the findings agreed that the list reflects today’s risk manager’s concerns. “These are the issues risk managers are facing,” says Kathleen Shostek, R.N., A.R.M., B.B.A., FASHRM, senior risk...