CPHRM Risk Identification 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which tool is MOST effective for identifying risks associated with a specific clinical procedure?
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) (Correct answer)
- Root cause analysis
- Incident reporting system
- Patient satisfaction surveys
Correct answer: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
FMEA proactively identifies potential failure points in a clinical procedure before harm occurs.
Question 2: A risk manager notices a pattern of patient falls in a specific unit during night shifts. This analysis technique is called:
- Trend analysis (Correct answer)
- Benchmarking
- Root cause analysis
- Sentinel event review
Correct answer: Trend analysis
Trend analysis identifies patterns in data over time to detect emerging risks before they escalate.
Question 3: Which of the following represents a LATENT risk in a healthcare organization?
- A nurse administering the wrong dose
- Understaffing due to poor scheduling policies (Correct answer)
- A mislabeled medication vial
- A patient allergy not communicated to a physician
Correct answer: Understaffing due to poor scheduling policies
Latent risks are systemic or organizational factors (like poor policies) that predispose the system to active errors.
Question 4: Environmental rounds conducted by risk management primarily help to identify which type of risk?
- Reputational risks
- Financial risks
- Physical hazard risks (Correct answer)
- Compliance risks
Correct answer: Physical hazard risks
Environmental rounds involve walking through facilities to identify physical hazards such as slip/trip hazards, unsafe equipment, or fire risks.
Question 5: A hospital uses ICD-10 coding data to identify high-risk diagnoses with elevated complication rates. This is an example of:
- Prospective risk identification
- Administrative data mining (Correct answer)
- Clinical benchmarking
- Concurrent review
Correct answer: Administrative data mining
Administrative data mining uses coded billing and clinical records to retrospectively identify patterns suggesting risk.
Question 6: Which source is MOST useful for identifying risks that staff are aware of but have not formally reported?
- Malpractice claim files
- Accreditation survey findings
- Focus groups with frontline staff (Correct answer)
- Patient complaint letters
Correct answer: Focus groups with frontline staff
Focus groups with frontline staff surface informal knowledge and near-miss experiences that may not appear in formal reporting systems.
Question 7: A healthcare risk manager reviewing surgical complications notices a surgeon's outlier complication rate. The FIRST step should be to:
- Report the surgeon to the state medical board
- Immediately suspend the surgeon's privileges
- Conduct a focused professional practice evaluation (FPPE) (Correct answer)
- Terminate the surgeon's contract
Correct answer: Conduct a focused professional practice evaluation (FPPE)
FPPE is the appropriate initial structured review process to evaluate a practitioner's competency when a concern is identified.
CPHRM Risk Identification 2
Which tool is MOST effective for identifying risks associated with a specific clinical procedure?