Week 4 Assignment: Organizational Risk Management Interview
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Week 1 Assignment: Elements of a Risk Management Program
Week 2 Assignment: Risk Management Assessment
Instructions:
Details:
Interview a health care provider on how an organization can prevent the spread of infectious disease within the facility. Include the following:
Identification of the challenges the organization faces in controlling infectious diseases.
Risk management strategies used in the organization’s infection control program, along with specific examples.
Monitoring and maintaining the risk management program.
Based on the interview, provide your impression of the organization’s risk management program. Support your rationale by citing references.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
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Solution
Organizational Risk Management Interview
Introduction
Infection control is a critical area of safety management in health care facilities. The area focuses mainly on controlling infections and protecting healthcare professionals and patients from possible infections. The major purpose is the protection and promotion of the health and the well-being of every person within and without the health care facility. Over the years, significant emphasis has been placed on infection control. The management of any health care facility must implement effective policies that ensure the protection of all workers and patients against infectious diseases. This interview seeks to identify the challenges that organizations face in controlling infectious diseases, the risk management strategies integrated into the infection control program, and the process of monitoring and maintaining the efficiency of the risk management program.
Interview
Interviewer: Infection control is a significantly important aspect of risk management in health care. How does your organization prevent the spread of infectious disease within the facility?
Health care provider: the organization has a clear risk management program that integrates infection control effectively to ensure that it prevents infection and the spread of infectious diseases. The program involves different steps to ensure effectiveness. These steps include risk identification, risk analysis, risk treatment and avoidance, and risk evaluation and monitoring. The risk management team that involves the health care professionals within the facility focuses on implementing the program in a way that ensures the early identification, analysis, and treatment of risks to prevent their occurrence or recurrence. The organization implements the program to ensure the prevention of infectious diseases from spreading within the facility. Each step involves professionals who apply different techniques targeted towards the prevention and control of infectious diseases from spreading. For instance, the risk identification and analysis elements of the program involve FMEA and RCA-trained professionals who identify and analyze risks to determine the possibility of the spread of an infectious disease. Additionally, these experts identify the various ways for the prevention of the spread of such diseases.
Interviewer: What are some of the specific risk management strategies used for the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases in the facility?
Health care provider: The organization uses different strategies depending on the situation. However, key among them is the promotion of awareness concerning infectious diseases. The infection control unit in the organization ensures that the staff and patients are aware of the different ways of preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Additionally, there are adequate preventive measures enforced such as hand washing, the proper disposal of sharps, and efficient monitoring and control of visitors and staff to prevent infections from within and without the facility. For instance, the monitoring and control strategies involve the isolation when there is a threat of infection spreading, the use of goggles, wearing of gloves, and gowns when providing care to patients suffering from infectious diseases. The infection control unit offers education through different organizational forums and meetings on the infection control policies.
Moreover, the infection control unit applies other critical strategies such as surveillance and vaccinations to ensure the effective prevention of the spread of infectious diseases. The vaccination of staff in the health care plays an important role in the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases. At times, when handling patients with different types of infectious diseases, the health care providers may contract the infections and spread them to the colleagues and other patients. This organization makes sure that the recommended vaccinations are administered to the staff to limit the possibility of such occurrences. Moreover, the health care providers work collectively with the infection control team in surveillance to collect data concerning infection patterns and the extent of such a risk within the facility. This process makes it possible for the organization to assess the extent of the risk and the effectiveness of the prevention program thus promoting patient and worker safety. Of greater importance, however, the infection control unit ensures that the information from surveillance is shared for the discussion of the most effective measures in case of an infection spread.
Interviewer: What are some of the challenges that the organization faces in the control of infectious diseases?
Health care provider: Through educational programs and the creation of awareness on the different ways of preventing the spread of infectious diseases in the organization has been successful to a greater degree. However, the organization still faces a few challenges in the control of infectious diseases and the maintenance of the program. For instance, the control of the diseases remains difficult as it requires a multi-disciplinary approach where the control unit must work together with the staff from different units, the patients, and visitors. Following this, the implementation of simple measures such as hand washing, surveillance, and education on the control of infectious diseases remains a difficult task. For example, even when health care providers might wash their hands before and after visiting the patients, visitors do not always do so. Also, surveillance requires the collective effort of the different units where a challenge lies in enforcing the measure to ensure that every unit works on the strategy. However, despite the challenges the organizations has achieved significant success in the maintenance of the program and in minimizing the possibility of the spread of infectious diseases in the facility.
In my opinion, the
organization has an effective risk management program, which has been
implemented effectively leading to the reduction of infectious disease risks and
other risks that would otherwise threaten the health and well-being of the
staff and patients. The program involves all the essential elements of a risk
management program that include identification of risk, analysis, treatment, and
evaluation (Carroll, 2013). Additionally, the risk management team
ensures that every element of the program receives the necessary attention to
guarantee the effectiveness of the whole program in the prevention and
reduction of risks within the facility. The application of the program in the prevention
of the spread of infectious diseases in the facility seems equally effective. The
infection control unit works closely with the different organizational units,
staff members, and patients to ensure safety from infectious diseases. It
implements different strategies efficiently to minimize the chances of and
control the spread of infectious diseases. According to Kavaler and Alexander (2014), inadequate preventive and
enforcement measures in health care facilities cause a rise in infection
control risks. Therefore, the organization, which promotes education, enforces
measures such as monitoring and control of patients, visitors, and staff, promotes
wearing gloves, goggles, and gowns when providing care to infectious patients
among other strategies has made an impressive step forward in the elimination
of infectious disease risks.
References
Carroll, R. (2013). Risk management handbook for health care organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass – A Wiley Imprint. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Risk+Management+Handbook+for+Health+Care+Organizations%2C+Student+Edition-p-9780470300176
Kavaler, F., & Alexander, R. S. (2014). Risk management in healthcare institutions : limiting liability and enhancing care (3rd Edition ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://www.jblearning.com/catalog/productdetails/9781449645656