By Adam Turteltaub

Risk assessments are not new in healthcare, and in specific regulatory areas are required. But, that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing.  More and more organizations are embracing enterprise risk assessments (ERM) as a way to assess the range of risks that they face, including  legal and regulatory concerns.

Getting the risk assessment right is particularly challenging for healthcare organizations, explains Robert Stratton, Executive Director – Enterprise Risk and Security; Corporate Compliance Official and Senior Counsel for Northwest Permanente. Robert is also the author of the chapter “Enterprise Risk Management in Healthcare” in the latest edition of the Complete Healthcare Compliance Manual. The mix of insurance, patient care professionals, large sums of money and complex structures makes the risk map challenging.

On the positive side, electronic health records can provide a wealth of information to inform your ERM efforts, as can frontline employees who can provide insights into what is going on behind the numbers.

Once the risks are mapped, there are four ways to manage them, he explains: transfer, accept, mitigate and avoid. It’s hard to do any of them cleanly, but it’s important to understand which approach or approaches are best for a given risk.

All four approaches, he adds, need to be accompanied by a culture which is aware of the risks, understands the risk appetite of the organization and their department, and acts accordingly.

Listen in to learn more about ERM and how compliance can play an effective role in identifying and managing risk.

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