Management of Risks in Healthcare Industry:Communication and Financing (Coursework Sample)

Health Care Risk Management: Assignment Week 2
Critical reflection on Chapter 4 and 5
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Introduction
Communication is critical in understanding what our clients, colleagues and the public want. In healthcare communication ensures that there is a coordinated response in what the caregivers are doing and creates an understanding and rapport between patients and caregivers.
Chapter Four highlights how risks can be reduced with proper communication in healthcare facilities. The chapter indicates that interactions between patients and clinicians and between clinicians as well as the ability of these parties to understand each other are essential in providing quality care and maintaining patient’s safety (Kavaler & Alexander, 2014). These parties are able to make informed decisions based as a result of proper communication. The parties must also recognize the constraints in communication and have plans on how to mitigate them for better understanding.
Chapter Five discusses another critical risk that needs to be managed by all companies: the financial risk. When operational performance of a company has been affected by a material factor then a financial risk is likely to happen. To manage financial risks, the concept of insurance was introduced in healthcare to enable equitable transfer of risks. As stated in this chapter, patients are safer (financially) if they transfer the risk of health costs to an insurance company (Kavaler & Alexander, 2014). Conducting patient satisfaction survey and keeping safe the patient’s data are some of the methods used in risk management.
Chapter Four and Five Critique
The two chapters add more information on management of risks in healthcare industry by identifying communication and financing as two areas that can affect the operations of a company.
On communication and its impact on malpractice litigation this chapter helped me understand that it is the responsibility of the clinicians to develop effective communication, cognitive and interpersonal skills that help them get along with other clinicians and patients. A poor judgment is made by a clinician as a result of client’s poor communication, the former always carry the blame. Thus, it is upon the clinician to develop skills that will improve communication and understanding between them and the clients.
Insurance models ensure that all risks can be covered using self-funded insurance strategy or commercially available models (Kavaler & Alexander, 2014). The main difference between a self-funded and a commercial insurance program is that in the latter costs can be easily predicted and thus easy to cover the costs. In self-funding, a healthcare center covers the insurance program including the operational costs. A stop-loss insurance program is purchased to manage the variable and fixed costs in self-funded programs.
Risk retention is about understanding how much of a risk a company is willing to ta