Risk Management

Abstract

Risk is encountered by everyone everyday. Since the beginning of time, humans have had to deal with risk. Controlling and eliminating the known risks are what we call risk management.
Risk management (RM) dates back 6000 years. In Babylonia in 4000 B.C., evidence has been discovered which indicates that efforts were made to minimize damage by fire and cargo loss at sea. Still, health care risk management is relatively new. In 1965, the case of Darling vs. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital set a precedent. In that case, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a hospital could be liable if the nursing staff failed to notify medical and hospital administration when they knew that a patient was receiving inadequate care from a physician, or if the hospital failed to review and monitor treatment by physicians, and failed to enforce medical staff bylaws requiring physicians to obtain consults when necessary. The private physician in this instance was a general practitioner who had been allowed by the hospital to practice orthopedics even though his competence had not been reviewed in more than 30 years (Southwick, 1988 ).