Hcs 451 Risk and Quality Management Summary

Risk and Quality Management Assessment Summary

Karen Goddard

HCS/451

December 3, 2012

Oscar Garcia

Risk and Quality Management Assessment Summary

Health care organizations strive to meet The Joint Commission standards and measures set for the organization. Quality and risk management are two of those measures. Leadership and management must take steps to identify and manage risk in the organization. Over the years demands from customers have influenced health care organizations to address the issue with quality of care. There are internal and external factors, which may affect or have risks for the organization or a department within the organization. Health care organizations should have short and long-term goals in order to achieve meet the needs of the customers and to provide quality of care with minimal or no risk. These goals should correspond with the mission and values of the organization.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) strives to provide quality care to all the Veterans who walk through the door. According to Young, Charns, and Barbour (1997), quality improvement is defined as, “continuous process to understand the needs and expectations of customers and to search for better ways they can be met” (p. 1). Quality management is defined as the continuous development used in organizations to produce quality services to meet or exceed customer expectations (Sollecito & Johnson, Chapter 1, 2013). As one can see quality management and quality improvement have the same definition and can be used interchangeably. The purpose of risk management is “to protect the organization against risks associated with accidental losses, regardless of the cause”  (McCaffrey & Hagg-Rickert, 2009, p. 8).

* Having a well-defined risk and quality management system established aids in reducing risks and streamlines incident reporting. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is dedicated to continual improvement of its quality measurement...