Risk Manager In The Healthcare Setting – Project Week 2

Running Head: RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EMERGENCY ROOM 1

RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EMERGENCY ROOM 4

RisksAssociated with the Emergency Room

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An emergency room is essential in hospitals since it is used to serve patients with conditions that have to be solved urgently. The patients either present themselves or are brought in by an ambulance. Their cases are taken as urgent since the patients were not able to make an appointment; an example of such an urgent condition is an accident. In this case, the patient was not in a condition to know that the accident would take place so that they would make an appointment with the hospital hence taken as an emergency.

When patients majorly come into the emergency room, there sometimes lacks proper communication among parties involved. One of the things that the emergency department needs to know is the nature of the accident. The group responsible for this is the people who bring in the patient into the emergency room; they should be communicate fast and effectively what happened to the patient in concern. With ineffective communication, there may be severe consequences for the patient in this case. This poses a risk to the patient since it is an emergency condition and lacks enough information on what happened to the patient. Being an urgent condition, this may sometimes lead to misdiagnosing the patient since there lacks evidence-based assessment (Gadir, 2019). This is another significant risk posed to the patient by activities of the emergency room.

The nature of the accident is sometimes unknown, and as the healthcare professionals are trying to establish this, the health risk is posed to them. The healthcare professional, in this case, may end being infected by emergency patients. An example of such a case is where the patients may be having a disease like the current coronavirus; if the healthcare professional is not careful enough, they will end up contracting the disease (United States Department of Labor, 2020). In most cases, the profession will not be careful enough since they lack knowledge of the nature of risk. Another risk posed to healthcare professionals is based on decision making due to the urgency of the patient’s condition. For this reason, in most cases, healthcare professionals will end making shared decision-making to reduce the risk.

There is mostly a case of patients overusing the emergency room. This is where patients with no urgent conditions present themselves in the emergency room, and it will lead to managed care insurance companies and the patients incurring higher costs. A study performed in 2004 established that overuse of the emergency room was the most common reason for disputes over coverage. Later in 2017, Anthem, which is a health insurance provider, expanded this denial coverage to ensure the overuse of the emergency room is not paid for, which provoked public policy reactions (Gadir, 2019). In the case that there are coverage disputes, the healthcare provider may end not being paid for the services that they provided. This is a significant risk posed to the healthcare facility since the overuse of the emergency room may end up bringing losses to their side.

With all the risks posed to patients, healthcare professionals, and the healthcare facilities being outlined above, this will help eliminate or mitigate the risks. The risks posed will, in some instances, end up interfering with the quality of services provided to the patients. It will also end having a negative impact on healthcare professionals and the facility. With all parties being put into consideration, quality improvement of the emergency room will be very beneficial.

Reference

Gadir, M. (2019). Risk Management in the Emergency Department. Omnia Health Insights |

News from the global healthcare community. Retrieved 27 September 2020, from https://insights.omnia-health.com/medical-specialities/risk-management-emergency-department.

United States Department of Labor. (2020). Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/hospital/er/er.html. Retrieved 27 September 2020,

from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/hospital/er/er.html.

Thakarar, K., Morgan, J. R., Gaeta, J. M., Hohl, C., & Drainoni, M. L. (2015). Predictors of

frequent emergency room visits among a homeless population. PloS one, 10(4), e0124552.