1. Examples of risk assessments
- Ground Rules for Conducting a Risk Assessment (PDF, 11KB)
- How to Conduct a Risk Assessment (PDF, 8KB)
- Usability Evaluation Tools
2. Why and how do we conduct risk assessments when preparing for our health IT system implementation?
By conducting a risk assessment, you capture feedback on workflow issues that may affect quality of care, efficiency, and/or costs. This can be accomplished through:
- a team process,
- usability testing,
- interviews with users, or
- structured surveys.
3. What will we do with the information we collect from a risk assessment?
By conducting a risk assessment you identify the how work processes will be affected by your health IT system and issues and concerns users have that could have negative consequences on workflow, efficiency, quality of care, etc. Thus you determine how to avoid these problems postimplementation by:
- modifying workflows,
- redesigning software, or
- including pertinent information in training programs.
4. What are the benefits of conducting a risk assessment prior to implementation?
By conducting a risk assessment, issues related to how tasks and activities will be accomplished post health IT application implementation can be addressed. As a result, you will avoid:
- patient delays,
- quality and safety concerns,
- billing backlogs, and
- duplication of effort.
Proactive risk assessments help identify issues and prepare for a health IT system implementation by also prioritizing issues and identifying how they can be resolved.