Hospital risk management-strategy to enhance safety

Hospital is a complex system of inter-related elements involving people, departments, rules, specialised equipment, patients with varying needs, and constantly evolving technologies and medications. Because of the interactions between all parts of the system, a small oversight in one of these areas can have a big flow-on effect in another part of the system. Patients admitted to hospital can expect to be looked after by many different health professionals - doctors and nurses of course, but also technicians, pharmacists, dieticians, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, among others. In this environment, problems such as organising teams with an appropriate mix of skills, communication breakdowns, unclear treatment plans, work pressure, fatigue and staff turnover all create risks which need careful attention to avoid unintentional harm to patients. The present article discusses the various concepts with Patient Safety and the Risk Management technique applicable to the health care sector in a developing country like India.