Proactive Risk Assessment Information

Members of the ISMP consulting staff bring decades of experience in medication risk identification and thus can provide objective recommendations for safety improvement of the medication process to your organization. Choose the type of consultation below that best suits your assessment needs:

Comprehensive Proactive Risk Assessment
As the most widely requested consulting process, the comprehensive assessment is designed for healthcare organizations interested in a broad, objective, and confidential evaluation of the safety of their present medication use processes. Employing ISMP’s conceptual model the Key Elements of the Medication Use Process, experienced members of the ISMP team utilize their extensive understanding of medication systems to conduct a complete assessment of the organization. Using an educational approach, the team collects information about current medication practices through direct observation and interviews with individuals and designated committees. Team members will identify those areas that present risk exposure and provide high-leverage, organization-specific error prevention strategies. An exit summary and written report provide a complete analysis of current medication risk exposure along with the recommendations and tools necessary for improvement.

Comprehensive Proactive Risk Assessments are performed by experienced ISMP professionals, including pharmacists, nurses, and physicians. Team members are selected based on the type of organization and the specific populations served.

Not sure if a Comprehensive Proactive Risk Assessment would benefit your organization? Take our Readiness Assessment and find out!

Targeted Risk Assessments
Targeted Risk Assessments are designed as narrowly focused evaluations for high-risk groups and/or error-prone processes. These evaluations are generally shorter in nature than the comprehensive consults and are typically limited to a particular department or specialty.

Previous targeted risk assessments have included pediatrics, oncology, surgical centers, high-alert medications, and the resolution of issues related to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization’s (JC’s) Medication Management Standards and National Patient Safety Goals. Visits can be proactive in nature or designed as an objective follow-up after serious or near miss events. These assessments can also be combined with a Root Cause Analysis review.

This program is uniquely designed for those organizations wishing to implement Actionable Improvements in the Measurement of medication safety.

This one to two day onsite support service is designed to assist organizations who are looking to improve their collection and use of meaningful data related to the safety of medication use. ISMP consulting staff with experience in reviewing and analyzing thousands of medication error reports can evaluate the organization’s current methods of gathering, analyzing, and using facility-specific medication-related data and offer recommendations to enhance these processes. Based on available aggregate data and meetings with risk management, quality improvement practitioners, and the identified team for Medication Safety, an ISMP consultant will assist in the selection of site-specific goals for high-leverage changes to augment current medication processes.