Risk Management For Nurses

What is Risk

Risk: the chance that a hazard will affect someone’s health

Risk Assessment Process

The term ‘risk management’ means to become aware of the particular workplace hazards, then to develop plans to minimise risk to individuals, team members, other colleagues and very importantly, the guests.  The first step in risk management is to conduct a ‘risk assessment’.

Methodically examining each area or department for potential risks to people and their health is the first step to becoming ‘aware’ of the hazards. Advice can be sought from an Occupational Health and Safety expert to assist with this process – eg Division of Workplace Healthy and Safety. See the Services Directory for local contact details.

Once completing a public health risk assessment, it is necessary to assess the risks that the hazards identified present to the health of your guests and staff. A risk assessment process is important so that action can be prioritised, allowing higher risks to be addressed first.

Strategic Planning

After identifying and locating hazards, and prioritising each according to risk, it is time to develop strategies to address these hazards. Strategies are the specific actions taken to minimise or remove hazards, either temporarily or permanently. Some strategies may address more than one hazard. For example, chlorinating the water in a rainwater tank not only kills pathogenic bacteria but also kills mosquito larvae, thereby removing a vector breeding environment.

On the other hand, some hazards may require the application of several strategies to remove or minimise the hazard. For example, to effectively control cockroaches in a kitchen, it is necessary to remove waste daily, seal cracks and crevices, clean up crumbs and other food sources and treat with pesticide regularly.

Sometimes the strategy that may work best for an intermittent hazard is a monitoring program. This allows problems to be identified when they occur and can trigger the implementation of a previously devised remediation strategy. In this way strategies can work in sequence.

A creative approach is needed to develop strategies that are not only effective in reducing or removing hazards but are also cost effective, long term solutions.

Public Health Risk Management Plan for Nurses

An public health risk management plan is the most effective way of managing public health hazards within a premises. It is a systematic, documented procedure for monitoring, maintaining and improving the environmental health of the premises.

Once an audit of the premises has been completed, and it has identified the hazards, prioritised them according to risk and selected strategies that are appropriate and affordable, the next step is to assemble a committee together to devise a plan.