Putting in place a risk dashboard is a useful tool that allows healthcare facilities to track and handle risks in real-time. It provides a holistic perspective of a company’s risk landscape, indicating major trouble spots and allowing a policy to take proactive measures to reduce them. It enables decision-makers to track hazards in real-time. A risk dashboard gives an up-to-date view of an institution’s risk landscape by integrating data from diverse sources such as reports, near-miss, and claim data incidents (Everts, 2020). A risk dashboard can assist healthcare companies in improving stakeholder communication and collaboration to foster a culture of accountability and openness.
Rationale on Implementation of Risk Dashboard
The existing risk management plan for the Acute Healthcare Company is deficient in terms of risk dashboard deployment. With no risk dashboard, the firm may be overlooking valuable information in its risk picture, making proactive risk management and regulatory compliance impossible. The Acute Healthcare institution is presently relying on incidences and claims data to detect hazards, which fails to cover all datasets and has reporting delays.
If the organization implemented a risk dashboard, it can track hazards in real-time and detect possible problems before they became serious. The Acute Healthcare organization will be significantly prepared to meet local, state, and national compliance criteria by installing a risk dashboard. Because many regulatory bodies demand that healthcare firms have a full risk control strategy with real-time risk monitoring, this criterion will be met by the organization. Furthermore, healthcare companies must adhere to quality standards such as those defined by the Joint Commission (Paine et al., 2018). Healthcare organizations are required by the Joint Commission to establish a comprehensive risk management program that involves risk identification, assessment, and mitigation.
Support Structure of Risk Dashboard
Several data sources suggest the importance of deploying a risk dashboard being part of a risk management program in healthcare businesses. A survey printed in the Journal of Family Medicine and Healthcare indicated that medical errors could result in large financial expenditures for healthcare organizations as well as patient harm (Kuriakose, 2021). According to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), contaminations connected to healthcare alone harm millions of individuals each year, resulting in thousands of fatalities and billions of dollars in healthcare expenses (Palms et al., 2018). Additionally, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines welfare rules to safeguard employees from dangers like blood-borne diseases, trips and falls, and workplace violence (Gan et al., 2020). Several federal rules, such as the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), and Affordable Care Act (ACA), mandate healthcare institutions to deliver high-quality, safe, and cost-effective treatment (Gal, 2021). Therefore, this proactive risk management technique can assist the firm in avoiding massive fines and legal risks associated with noncompliance.
Implementation of Risk Dashboard
The first stage in developing a risk dashboard approach is to determine important stakeholders such as executives, risk management personnel, information technology personnel, and other relevant entities. Secondly, describe the risk dashboard’s scope and objectives by defining major risks that must be managed and monitored. After reviewing several software solutions and selecting the best fit, the firm will need to choose a risk dashboard platform.
Fourthly, they will create a data model outlining how the information will be gathered, processed, and shown on the dashboard. The risk dashboard is then designed to present the required data by incorporating visualization tools, alarms, and access controls (Meng et al., 2020). Following that, personnel will need to be instructed on how to utilize it effectively through the use of training materials, workshops, and continuing support. Lastly, the risk dashboard must be evaluated and improved over time to guarantee that it is serving the needs of the organization.
Evaluation of Risk Dashboard
To begin, establish success indicators that are aligned with the organization’s goals, such as risks recognized and risks minimized. Secondly, before and after adopting the risk dashboard, the firm will need to gather data on such success metrics. Once the data has been gathered, it should be reviewed to see if the risk dashboard has a beneficial influence on the firm by calculating the ROI (Grover et al, 2018). Depending on the findings, the risk dashboard could require to be tweaked to better suit the organization’s objectives. The evaluation findings should then be presented to important stakeholders, such as executives risk management personnel, and other relevant entities. Finally, the business should prepare for continual assessment of the risk dashboard to verify that it is meeting the organization’s objectives.
Opportunities
Some risk management enhancements that the institution could pursue are as follows. One, using process improvement efforts, such as Lean Six Sigma techniques, can help to discover and reduce inefficiencies and faults in healthcare delivery systems (Henrique, 2020). Furthermore, as healthcare companies rely more on technology to provide treatment, it is vital to handle cybersecurity and data privacy (Coventry, 2018). Strong security and data privacy procedures and guidelines can aid in the protection of patient information and the prevention of data breaches.
Conclusion
Establishing a risk dashboard to give real-time data on the organization’s important risks is an efficient risk management method that can increase the organization’s capacity to identify and manage hazards promptly. The organization’s legal obligation to provide a secure care and work surrounding reinforces the requirement for the risk dashboard to be implemented. Acute healthcare organizations will significantly recognize and handle risks, enhance patient security, and ensure that they continue to deliver a safe medical facility and working conditions by addressing related areas of influence.
References
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Everts, J. (2020). The dashboard pandemic. Dialogues in Human Geography, 10(2), 260-264. Web.
Gal, J. S., Vaidyanathan, M., & Morewood, G. (2021). Anesthesiology payment methods: US perspective. International Anesthesiology Clinics, 59(4), 37-46. Web.
Gan, W. H., Lim, J. W., & Koh, D. (2020). Preventing intra-hospital infection and transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 in health-care workers. Safety and Health at Work, 11(2), 241-243. Web.
Grover, V., Chiang, R. H., Liang, T. P., & Zhang, D. (2018). Creating strategic business value from big data analytics: A research framework. Journal of management information systems, 35(2), 388-423. Web.
Henrique, D. B., & Godinho Filho, M. (2020). A systematic literature review of empirical research in lean and six sigma in Healthcare. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 31(3-4), 429-449. Web.
Kuriakose, R., Aggarwal, A., Sohi, R. K., Goel, R., Rashmi, N. C., & Gambhir, R. S. (2020). Patient safety in primary and outpatient health care. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 9(1), 7. Web.
Meng, Y., Zhang, Y., Wang, S., Wu, S., Zhou, H., Ke, C., & Rainey, J. J. (2020). Lessons learned in the development of a web-based surveillance reporting system and dashboard to monitor acute febrile illnesses in Guangdong and Yunnan Provinces, China, 2017-2019. Health security, 18(S1), S-14. Web.
Paine, L. A., Holzmueller, C. G., Elliott, R., Kasda, E., Pronovost, P. J., Weaver, S. J.& Mathews, S. C. (2018). Latent risk assessment tool for health care leaders. Journal of Healthcare Risk Management, 38(2), 36-46. Web.
Palms, D. L., Mungai, E., Eure, T., Anttila, A., Thompson, N. D., Dudeck, M. A. & Stone, N. D. (2018). The national healthcare safety network long-term care facility component early reporting experience: January 2013-December 2015. American Journal of Infection Control, 46(6), 637-642. Web.