Risk management and quality of care.

Risk management is about reducing the likelihood of errors. Its particular aims are to reduce errors that are costly in terms of damage, discomfort, disability, or distress to an individual and to limit financial loss to an organisation. Risk management achieves this through detecting, reporting, and correcting actual or potential deficiencies in the process of care that, however small, could lead to a significant and costly mistake. Risk management programmes therefore involve all aspects ofwork, production, and interactions within an organisation and in health care this includes looking beyond clinical care. An established and well run risk management programme contributes towards providing hospital care that is free of mistakes and it makes a clear contribution to healthcare quality. The benefits to patients of care in a hospital whose treatment can be guaranteed to be as safe as possible are obvious. But risk management is only one of a clutch of programmes whose aim is to improve quality of care, and reducing harm is only one aspect of healthcare quality. Linking risk management programmes with other quality initiatives will help to develop a coherent approach to quality improvement within a hospital or practice. This paper will explore some of the ideas and definitions of quality of care and examine the particular contribution of risk management with some other quality initiatives to improving different aspects of healthcare quality.