HCC Risk Management & Mitigation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A healthcare consultant discovers that a client hospital has no formal process for reporting near-miss events. What is the primary risk of this gap?
- Lost opportunities to identify and correct hazards before patient harm occurs (Correct answer)
- Increased malpractice insurance premiums
- Reduced staff satisfaction scores
- Longer patient wait times
Correct answer: Lost opportunities to identify and correct hazards before patient harm occurs
Near-miss reporting allows organizations to detect and fix system weaknesses before they cause actual patient harm.
Question 2: Which risk response strategy is a hospital using when it purchases malpractice insurance?
- Risk avoidance
- Risk transfer (Correct answer)
- Risk acceptance
- Risk reduction
Correct answer: Risk transfer
Insurance shifts the financial consequences of a risk to a third party, which is the definition of risk transfer.
Question 3: A consultant is prioritizing risks for a client using a risk matrix. Which two factors are plotted on a standard risk matrix?
- Cost and duration
- Likelihood and impact (Correct answer)
- Frequency and department size
- Severity and staffing levels
Correct answer: Likelihood and impact
A risk matrix ranks risks by how likely they are to occur and how severe the consequences would be.
Question 4: During a root cause analysis after a medication error, the team keeps asking 'why' until they reach the underlying system failure. What technique is being used?
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
- The Five Whys (Correct answer)
- SWOT analysis
- Pareto analysis
Correct answer: The Five Whys
The Five Whys technique repeatedly asks why an event occurred to drill down to the root cause.
Question 5: Which proactive tool should a consultant recommend to evaluate a new infusion pump workflow BEFORE it is implemented?
- Root cause analysis
- Sentinel event review
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) (Correct answer)
- Incident report trending
Correct answer: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
FMEA prospectively identifies potential failure points in a process before harm occurs, unlike retrospective tools.
Question 6: A client asks a consultant to help reduce risk from workplace violence in the emergency department. Which measure is an example of an engineering control?
- De-escalation training for staff
- Installing controlled-access doors and panic buttons (Correct answer)
- A zero-tolerance policy statement
- Post-incident debriefing sessions
Correct answer: Installing controlled-access doors and panic buttons
Engineering controls physically modify the environment to reduce hazard exposure, such as access controls and alarms.
Question 7: In enterprise risk management (ERM) for healthcare organizations, risks are categorized across multiple domains. Which of the following is considered a strategic risk?
- A nurse needlestick injury
- A competitor opening a nearby ambulatory surgery center (Correct answer)
- A billing coding error
- A power outage in the operating room
Correct answer: A competitor opening a nearby ambulatory surgery center
Strategic risks affect the organization's market position and long-term goals, such as new competition.
HCC Risk Management & Mitigation 2
A healthcare consultant discovers that a client hospital has no formal process for reporting near-miss events.
What is the primary risk of this gap?