BHA FPX 3004 Assessment 2 Applying Risk Management Functions in Healthcare

Applying Risk Management Functions in Healthcare

Student Name

Capella university

BHA-FPX 3004

Instructor’s Name

Submission date

The healthcare industry businesses are continuously seeking avenues to recognize, evaluate, and minimize the risks that can pose a threat to patient care or jeopardize the productivity of the business. Patient safety case: the issue that has been identified is the mistake in the medication of the patient. The patient presented to the med-surg with atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response and was put on IV diltiazem to regulate the heart rate.

It is a severe patient safety concern due to the delay of storage of the medication, delay of the use of the technology, and the delay in the workflow process. The evidence-based practice can also help control this risk of patient safety by conducting a systematic risk analysis to reduce the chances of another patient safety hazard in the future.

Key Risk Management Terms

Risk Prevention

Risk management in the healthcare sector is mostly based on the basic concepts of patient safety risks, risk identification, risk analysis, and risk prevention. The concept of risk prevention is the measures that can be put in place to remove the risk of patient safety hazards before the risk occurs. With regard to patient safety, patient safety risk prevention can be implemented through the establishment of systems that reduce the risk of human error in the provision of patient care services.

One of the risk prevention examples related to patient safety is that the risk of medication administration error is minimized by delivering a closed-loop drug administration system, which will not dispense the drug in case of a mismatch between the scanned barcode and the patient (Williams et al., 2025). To reduce the chances of negative occurrences in the patient safety case presented by Vila Health, it is possible to: Have the medication dispensing systems (ADS) programmed to segregate the look-alike drugs, and to ensure that all the medication dispensing systems use barcode verification before dispensing medications.

Risk Reduction

A risk reduction process is the procedure of undertaking actions to reduce the level of risk of poor outcomes through a reduction in the probability of poor outcomes in case they are not preventable. It can involve the use of patient safety systems like double-check, checklist, and redundancy. These steps may include medication administration risk reduction by ensuring the right dose of the drug, e.g., the other qualified person verifies the dosage of high-alert drugs such as insulin, beta blockers, and anticoagulants and then administers the drug (Tariq et al, 2024).

Regulatory Compliance

The health care organizations must comply with the rules of the Joint Commission, CMS, and OSHA (The Joint Commission, 2026). These guidelines deal with patient safety, patient identification, patient safety and infection control, and work safety. Noncompliance may lead to sanctions, accreditation, and lawsuits.

Patient Safety

Patient safety refers to avoiding negative occurrences that can take place in the health care environment for patients. This may include the development of a reliable system, improving communication among members of health care teams, as well as integrating evidence-based practice with patient care. According to Jalali (2025), the Institute of Medicine has on numerous occasions reminded us that patient safety is not an issue or concern of the members of the health care team, but the system within the health care organization failed.

Adverse Event

Patient injuries that occur due to the health care that is given to the patient, rather than due to the underlying condition of the patient, are adverse events. Some of the negative events may include medication errors, surgery-related complications, and infections. In the patient safety scenario in Vila Health, the patient has experienced symptoms of bradycardia and hypotension as a result of being prescribed the correct drug (an adverse drug reaction) to take.

Near Miss

A case where a failure might have resulted in injury to the patient but was averted because it was not allowed to reach the patient. An example is a medication bar code program that identifies a wrong medication prior to administering the medication to the patient. It is a very vital period that healthcare institutions can find out what they are lacking and rectify it before they regret it and a patient loses his/her life. In an article by Davis et al. (2025), this is highlighted.

Major Risk Categories and Corresponding Risk Identification Techniques for Patient Identification Errors

Clinical Risks

Hospitals and healthcare systems are exposed to various types of risks that can impact patient health, healthcare delivery, and financial well-being. Clinical risk is one of the types of risk. It is a form of risk that is patient health-related. There are the following clinical risks: medication error, surgical error, hospital-acquired infection, and diagnostic error (Rodziewicz et al., 2024). The use of metoprolol instead of diltiazem in a patient’s physiology in the case of Vila Health is a clinical risk to the patient.

Operational Risks

The other type of risk is operational risk. This is some form of risk which touches on the healthcare provision within a healthcare organization (Rodziewicz et al., 2024). Vila Health’s problem was caused by a malfunctioning barcode scanner and certain medication packaging that caused an operational risk.

Financial Risks

Financial risk is the third type of risk. It is a type of risk that is concerned with financial losses resulting from patient harm, malpractice suits, fines, and increased costs of healthcare (Rodziewicz et al., 2024). In the case of Vila Health, the patient was admitted into the ICU, where he was to receive intensive care, and the medication error became part of the cost of health care. Additionally, there is a risk that a malpractice suit can be caused by a medication error, which will only increase the expense to a healthcare organization.

Compliance Risks

Compliance risk is the fourth type of risk. It is a kind of risk linked with the inability of a healthcare organization to address the requirements of healthcare laws and standards (Rodziewicz et al., 2024). The error with medication in the case of Vila Health was not in line with the National Patient Safety Goals of the Joint Commission (The Joint Commission, 2026). The security in giving medicines is covered by these regulations. The consequences of not adhering to the laws could be the loss of credibility of the healthcare professionals involved.

Role of the Risk Manager in Patient Medication Errors

The purpose of the risk manager is actually one of the most important in both making certain that the risk management program of an organization is really effective. They take part in the process of hazard identification, incident data analysis, creation of safety policies, adherence to safety regulations, surveillance of medication errors, root cause analysis of medication safety-related incidents, and control of the provisions of the policies in different departments of the organization. As an example, when it comes to a medication at Vila Health, a risk manager will be in charge of the root cause analysis to figure out what was contributing to the mistake; could it be technology, storage, or any other disruption in the work process?

The other task of a risk manager is to develop a safety culture within the health care environment. You can use an effort to establish where the organization is failing to meet the grade on safety by asking the staff members to inform you about medication errors or near-misses that occurred inside the organization. Research has shown that a better reporting culture is linked to improved outcomes of adverse event prevention, which also leads to better patient outcomes (Davis et al., 2025).

The literature also proposed that the risk manager can strengthen the medication safety program in the organization by supporting medication safety committees with different healthcare disciplines able to access evidence-based solutions such as barcode medication administration, educating the healthcare staff, and redesigning medication storage processes to reduce medication errors (Williams et al., 2025).

Overview of Risks Associated with Unaddressed Patient Medication Errors

Failure to mitigate risks to medication administration has a severe and damaging effect not only on the patients but also on the staff and on healthcare organizations. Medication administration errors may result in the medication having detrimental side effects, causing the patient to spend a long period in the hospital, causing severe harm to the patient, or the patient may die. Patients were prescribed an unindicated beta-blocker medication at Vila Health that led to cardiovascular instability, for example.

Therefore, it is evident that medication administration errors have significant negative consequences for patients’ health and well-being. When medication administration errors happen, nurses and other health care practitioners experience the consequences of medication administration errors; these can be significant and impact the psychological well-being of nurses. It is what is referred to as the second victim effect.

Evidence-Based Risk Management Strategies for Patient Identification Errors

Healthcare organizations may implement various evidence-based strategies to enhance medication administration safety, as well as patient safety overall. One of the evidence-based interventions aimed at improving medication administration safety is to fully introduce the barcode medication administration technology. With barcode medication administration technology, a nurse scans a patient’s identification band and a medication’s barcode prior to giving a patient the medicine. This can be used to make sure that patients receive the appropriate medicines, their appropriate quantities, and at the appropriate time. Research has shown that using the barcode medication administration technology can cut medication administration errors in half (Williams et al., 2025).

The other evidence-based approach is to enhance automated dispensing cabinet storage and labelling. To illustrate, letters and color coding can be utilized to tell the difference between look-alike and sound-alike medications by being tall and color coded. Pharmacy departments ought to be involved in increased systematization and accessibility of medicines with the nurses. Having a culture of trust among nurses so that they can report medication administration errors without fear of punishment or reprimand can be helpful to healthcare safety.

Importance of a Risk Management Program in Healthcare Organizations

An integrated approach to risk management is the crucial element in ensuring patient safety, compliance with regulations, and a sustainable organization. A risk management program is created to assist in identifying risks, researching risks, and to take negative actions to prevent adverse outcomes. Thus, if these safety issues are tackled within the health facilities by leaders from the health sector, patients would be safer, outcomes would be better, and operations would be smoother (Ravi et al., 2022).

The main aspects of an effective risk management plan are incident reporting, root cause analysis, staff training, safety audit, and providing quality care to patients. Lack of all these measures may be very costly to health facilities in case of adverse outcomes. Therefore, the need for effective risk management to create highly reliable health care facilities that are safety- and quality-oriented is important.

Conclusion

Vila Health case study demonstrates that using technology, storage, and workflow aspects can lead to medication errors that might negatively affect the patient. In order to ensure health care facility operations are safer, simple risk management activities, which include identification of risks, avoidance and justification of risks, and fulfilling regulatory requirements, should be performed to discover risks in health care facilities.

The responsibilities of health care facilities’ risk managers include leadership and governance in safety efforts to help with root cause analysis, and the promotion of a culture of open communication to enhance health care facility safety. Evidence-based practices have been shown to be able to assist in reducing medication errors and enhancing the safety of health care.