President’s Message
ASHRM Board and ERM, “Walking the Walk” The ASHRM 2015 Board of Directors applied ERM to our Strategic Plan to identify any internal or external threats to the plan by asking a simple question: What could go wrong?
By Ellen Grady Venditti, MS, RN, CPHRM, FASHRM
Those of us who have experienced a delayed but very harsh winter are anxiously awaiting the emergence of the first crocus … but we can’t help but wonder … will spring ever come? Here in New England, the first blizzard didn’t arrive until the end of January. However, by that time we were so preoccupied with football we hardly noticed! Whether you are a football fan or not, it would be difficult to avoid hearing about the troubles confronting professional football this year. There have been so many different critical events reported in the news, one can’t help wonder if their organization has an enterprise risk management (ERM) program in place or not? The ERM model is as adaptable to football as it is to healthcare or any other business or organization. Your ASHRM Board decided to not just “talk the talk” when it comes to ERM, but to “walk the walk” as well. We convened our first Board meeting in January and began reviewing the ASHRM Strategic Plan already in place, as well as beginning our work on developing the next strategic plan for 2016–2018. Board member David Sine, Chief Risk Officer, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Quality, Safety, and Value, suggested we use an ERM approach to highlight the main risks or challenges that might hinder us from achieving our strategic objectives in place for this year. This sounded like a great opportunity to practice our ERM skills! We proceeded to perform a group exercise, working to identify the risks to key objectives, goals, and initiatives in our strategic plan (you can view the strategic plan at http://www.ashrm.org/ashrm/about/ governance/strategic_plan.shtml). Two strategies were selected for the exercise: Strategy 2.3 under the Patient Safety Goal, which states we will “Lead and support members’ use of a value driven approach to risk management,” and Strategy 4.2 under the Operations and Governance Goal, which states we will “Grow ASHRM membership.” The board split into working groups and asked the following questions related to these 2 strategies: • What risks might derail these strategic goals? • What risks arise from these strategies (collateral consequences)? • What internal controls and measures are we using (or could we use) to give us confidence that we are on track to meet the goals? • Can the risks be ranked? How? • Should the identified risks be mitigated or just monitored? • If monitored, is there a threshold for escalation for mitigating actions?
© 2015 American Society for Healthcare Risk Management of the American Hospital Association Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/jhrm.21165 AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR HEALTHCARE RISK MANAGEMENT • VOLUME 34, NUMBER 4
1
The exercise identified several risks or “threats” to attainment of our goals: some were internal and others external, but all were “softly predictive” and, if monitored, could give the Board a heads-up that a strategic goal might be at risk. As an example, if there is an underlying assumption that mergers of healthcare systems create redundancies of risk management positions, are an increase in healthcare mergers and acquisitions a threat to a strategic goal of increasing membership? In other words, is an uptick in merger activity softly predictive of a threat to that strategic goal? Noted ERM author James Lam might call that a Key Risk Indicator or KRI. And it is thought that those KRIs should be a part of the Board’s ERM dashboard report. The expanded role of the healthcare risk manager and the inclusion of ERM in the risk manager’s portfolio opens the door of strategic planning for the risk manager and
2
gives them a powerful tool. Your first step into this new arena could be like ours, by starting with your organization’s strategic plan and asking the simple question: What could go wrong? We are looking forward to seeing many of you at ASHRM Academy, to be held this year at Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa, Florida, April 13–16, 2015. The Academy is a great way to network with colleagues in an environment more “intimate” than the annual conference and learn at the same time. It should be a great way to celebrate spring!
2015 ASHRM President
JOURNAL OF HEALTHCARE RISK MANAGEMENT • VOLUME 34, NUMBER 4
DOI: 10.1002/jhrm
ASHRM Board and ERM, “Walking the Walk” The ASHRM 2015 Board of Directors applied ERM to our Strategic Plan to identify any internal or external threats to the plan by asking a simple question: What could go wrong?
By Ellen Grady Venditti, MS, RN, CPHRM, FASHRM
Those of us who have experienced a delayed but very harsh winter are anxiously awaiting the emergence of the first crocus … but we can’t help but wonder … will spring ever come? Here in New England, the first blizzard didn’t arrive until the end of January. However, by that time we were so preoccupied with football we hardly noticed! Whether you are a football fan or not, it would be difficult to avoid hearing about the troubles confronting professional football this year. There have been so many different critical events reported in the news, one can’t help wonder if their organization has an enterprise risk management (ERM) program in place or not? The ERM model is as adaptable to football as it is to healthcare or any other business or organization. Your ASHRM Board decided to not just “talk the talk” when it comes to ERM, but to “walk the walk” as well. We convened our first Board meeting in January and began reviewing the ASHRM Strategic Plan already in place, as well as beginning our work on developing the next strategic plan for 2016–2018. Board member David Sine, Chief Risk Officer, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Quality, Safety, and Value, suggested we use an ERM approach to highlight the main risks or challenges that might hinder us from achieving our strategic objectives in place for this year. This sounded like a great opportunity to practice our ERM skills! We proceeded to perform a group exercise, working to identify the risks to key objectives, goals, and initiatives in our strategic plan (you can view the strategic plan at http://www.ashrm.org/ashrm/about/ governance/strategic_plan.shtml). Two strategies were selected for the exercise: Strategy 2.3 under the Patient Safety Goal, which states we will “Lead and support members’ use of a value driven approach to risk management,” and Strategy 4.2 under the Operations and Governance Goal, which states we will “Grow ASHRM membership.” The board split into working groups and asked the following questions related to these 2 strategies: • What risks might derail these strategic goals? • What risks arise from these strategies (collateral consequences)? • What internal controls and measures are we using (or could we use) to give us confidence that we are on track to meet the goals? • Can the risks be ranked? How? • Should the identified risks be mitigated or just monitored? • If monitored, is there a threshold for escalation for mitigating actions?
© 2015 American Society for Healthcare Risk Management of the American Hospital Association Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/jhrm.21165 AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR HEALTHCARE RISK MANAGEMENT • VOLUME 34, NUMBER 4
1
The exercise identified several risks or “threats” to attainment of our goals: some were internal and others external, but all were “softly predictive” and, if monitored, could give the Board a heads-up that a strategic goal might be at risk. As an example, if there is an underlying assumption that mergers of healthcare systems create redundancies of risk management positions, are an increase in healthcare mergers and acquisitions a threat to a strategic goal of increasing membership? In other words, is an uptick in merger activity softly predictive of a threat to that strategic goal? Noted ERM author James Lam might call that a Key Risk Indicator or KRI. And it is thought that those KRIs should be a part of the Board’s ERM dashboard report. The expanded role of the healthcare risk manager and the inclusion of ERM in the risk manager’s portfolio opens the door of strategic planning for the risk manager and
2
gives them a powerful tool. Your first step into this new arena could be like ours, by starting with your organization’s strategic plan and asking the simple question: What could go wrong? We are looking forward to seeing many of you at ASHRM Academy, to be held this year at Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa, Florida, April 13–16, 2015. The Academy is a great way to network with colleagues in an environment more “intimate” than the annual conference and learn at the same time. It should be a great way to celebrate spring!
2015 ASHRM President
JOURNAL OF HEALTHCARE RISK MANAGEMENT • VOLUME 34, NUMBER 4
DOI: 10.1002/jhrm
