Importance Of Risk Management In Healthcare

A large number of people use the healthcare service daily and a majority of them receive safe and high-quality care, however things can go wrong and mistakes can be made. Recently a high number of high profile cases, detailing neglect, show that there is still a lot more we can do to ensure the safety of all individuals when using the healthcare service. As a healthcare scientist, it is our responsibility and duty to ensure that all individuals receive the safest and highest quality of care.

A cardio-respiratory department in a district general hospital moves to a new site. You have been asked to assist in making sure that the ‘exercise tolerance-testing suite' is safe and ready to use. Describe the process you would undertake to assess the
During the risk assessment, we must ask ourselves, "What can go wrong?" "How bad?" or "how often?" and finally "is there a need for action?" These four questions will help us look at the potential hazards and risks, which may pose. For each hazard that is acknowledged, it is important for us to decide whether it is significant and whether appropriate and adequate controls or contingencies are in place to ensure that the risk is suitably controlled.
To help us carry out an easy risk assessment. There are five steps that we can take:

Step 1. Identifying the hazards (What can go wrong?)
To prevent harm to both the patient and us, it is important to recognise not only what can go wrong but also how and why it may go wrong. Think through the activity within the setting of the physical and emotional environment, and the culture of the organisation and the staff who complete the activity. Take into consideration things that have gone wrong in the past and near miss incidents.

Step 2. Decide, who might be harmed, and
The ETT suite should be large enough to accommodate all the equipment necessary; this includes emergency equipment such as a crash trolley and defibrillator. It is vital that there is adequate access to the patient in any case of an emergency. Under the national health services policy for patient safety, it states that we regulate all medicines and medical devices in the UK by making sure they work and are safe to use. The medicines and healthcare products regulatory agency (MHRA) ensures that all medicines and equipment used in healthcare from painkillers to pacemakers work properly and are acceptably safe.
The ETT suite must be well lighted, clean and well ventilated. The room must also have enough space for all the items required for patient preparation and testing. Privacy is a very important matter for the patient and the physiologist and therefore it is good to ensure that there is a curtain to allow this.
For continuous monitoring of heart rhythm and evaluation of ischemic ECG changes during exercise and recovery, all rooms must contain a suitable ECG recording system to allow