Risk Assessments

Keeping patients and staff safe is a top priority for every healthcare organization. Leaders must be vigilant in continually monitoring, measuring, and improving risk, as well as identifying processes, environments, cultures and other factors affecting patient safety and organizational performance.

ECRI’s Risk Assessments provide an efficient web-based solution for conducting such evaluations. These assessments collect multidisciplinary safety perspectives—from front-line workers to the executive suite—with reporting and analysis dashboards to help identify opportunities for improvement.

Patient safety culture assessments

ECRI offers surveys that focus on the overall safety culture of hospitals, medical offices, ambulatory surgery centers, and nursing homes. ECRI uses the Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS™) developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). These surveys cover fundamental areas, such as communication, teamwork, and organizational learning. Each also addresses facility-specific concerns. Hear more about measuring the culture of safety during our recent podcast.

We also offer a Culture of Safety Assessment for Health IT vendors and partners. This assessment reflects the importance of focusing on safe design, development, implementation, and use of health IT products, as outlined in the Electronic Health Record Association’s EHR Developer Code of Conduct.

Clinical and operational risk assessments

In addition to culture of safety, ECRI maintains a broad portfolio of assessments that cover a wide array of operational and clinical processes, including Outbreak Preparedness. Healthcare organizations may use them to evaluate specific areas after a patient safety incident has occurred or as a tool to proactively complete an assessment of a high-risk process once every 18 months, as required by The Joint Commission. In addition, insurance and risk management firms can utilize Risk Assessments to help guide underwriting decisions for their healthcare clients.

Hospitals, ambulatory care, and continuing care communities use findings from the interactive dashboard analysis to develop action plans based on the latest standards, recommendations, and guidelines.

Guided assessments

ECRI offers self-guided evaluations to standardize the review process to easily aggregate data and more accurately identify risks. Insurers and healthcare organization may use the Risk Assessment - Medical Office and Risk Assessment – Comprehensive Hospital to streamline policy review, interviews, and walkarounds for an unbiased evaluation of risks.

Through automated report generation, hospitals, medical offices, and insurance and risk management firms can compare data to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement in facilities and health systems.

Interested in learning more?

Setup a consultation with an ECRI expert to learn more about evaluating factors affecting patient safety and organizational performance.