Risk Management plans and programs. Management Research Paper

Risk Management Programs
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Risk Management Programs
A plan of risk management refers to the strategies implemented by an organization to foresee, predict, define, and address potential risks. In other words, it is a way through which healthcare organizations prepare to minimize or manage possible risks. With many medical institutions adopting electronic health records (EHRs) to keep a record of their patients’ data, the risk of privacy and security breaches become imminent. That is the reason why such organizations need to implement risk management programs that will make them well-prepared to handle different issues that might arise. The paper focuses on a risk management plan for Pittsburgh University Health Center.
I selected a patient data-focused risk management plan. My rationale for choosing this program was based on the current technological trend. As stated earlier, many healthcare institutions are implementing EHRs so that they can keep proper records of their patients’ medical histories for future reference. In that light, my primary focus was on getting a risk management plan to show the efforts made by medical centers in safeguarding patients’ data. In the digital era, cyber breaches are inevitable. Some large corporations have damaged their reputation and others faced lawsuits and heavy penalties due to the failure of implementing proper security protocols. When a healthcare institution does not adopt a proper risk management program, it creates loopholes for hackers or unauthorized personnel to access its databases (Zarei & Sadoughi, 2016). As such, I thought it would be good to focus on a subject that might affect the reputation of healthcare organizations, which fail to implement the right security measures. Pittsburgh University Health Center has an EHR in place, and that is the reason why it should do everything to safeguard the data stored in its system.
A typical program of risk management of a medical institution recommends various administrative processes and steps. First, it requires an institution to be responsible for handling patients’ data appropriately. The recorded data should be protected at all cost despite the implementation of a risk mitigation program. Second, the medical organization should comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. HIPAA is a legislation that was passed by the government of the United States of America (USA) to enhance data security and privacy provisions to protect patients’ medical information (Kruse, Frederick, Jacobson, & Monticone, 2017). Hospitals are required to implement proper security measures to ensure that the recorded data is safe. Third, another administrative process of the risk management plan is to report information breaches when they occur and find ways to eliminate adverse effects. In contrast, the University of Pittsburgh risk management plan ensures that the healthcare institution has proper technology infrastructure to prevent cyber breaches (University of Pittsburgh, 2005). For example, it facilitates the use of a firewall and updated antivirus software to detect any attempt made by hackers to access its system. M...