Risk management in the medical setting focuses on the identification, evaluation, and treatment of problems which may injure patients, lead to malpractice claims, and cause financial loss to health care providers. The objectives closely parallel those of quality assessment in attempting to prevent adverse medical incidents and minimize the risk of injury to patients.
While the subject of iatrogenic injury, or what most of us call complications, is not new, the amount of attention paid to it-public and professional-is.
Although initially driven by the media focus on the high mortality figures, the safety movement is sustained by the recognition that there is much more we as health care professionals can do to decrease errors and injuries. RMF Strategies has identified some basic areas of understanding which are important in educating the public and health care professionals alike in the matter of patient safety.
A new understanding of the nature of medical error and with it the possibility of creating a safer health care system. The new view of medical error draws from studies of the epidemiology of medical injuries and from fields such as cognitive psychology and industrial engineering.
The new view, however, is not widely known among health care professionals. Changing clinicians' patterns of practice and redesigning problematic processes in the delivery of health care will require an understanding of the root causes of medical error and the technology to improve it.
