How do you assess risk for your healthcare project?

1 Define your project scope and objectives

The first step in risk assessment is to clearly define your project scope and objectives, as they will serve as the basis for identifying and evaluating risks. You should also consider the expectations and needs of your stakeholders, such as patients, staff, partners, regulators, and funders. A well-defined project scope and objectives will help you avoid scope creep, unrealistic expectations, and conflicting priorities.

2 Identify potential risks

The next step is to brainstorm and list all the possible risks that could affect your project, both positive and negative. Various sources and methods can be used to identify risks, such as historical data, expert opinions, surveys, interviews, checklists, brainstorming sessions, and SWOT analysis. It is important to involve your project team and stakeholders in this process, as they may provide different perspectives and insights. Common categories of risks in healthcare projects include clinical risks such as adverse events or patient safety issues; operational risks such as delays or communication breakdowns; financial risks like budget overruns or cost overruns; regulatory risks like compliance violations or audits; and strategic risks such as market changes or reputation damage.

3 Analyze and prioritize risks

The third step is to analyze and prioritize the risks based on their likelihood and impact on your project. You can use various tools and techniques to do this, such as risk matrices, scoring systems, probability distributions, and sensitivity analysis. The purpose of this step is to determine which risks are the most critical and require the most attention and resources. You should also consider the interrelationships and dependencies among the risks, as they may amplify or mitigate each other.

4 Plan risk responses

The fourth step is to develop and document your risk response strategies, which are the actions you will take to prevent, reduce, transfer, accept, or exploit the risks. You should also assign roles and responsibilities for each risk response, and define the triggers, indicators, and metrics that will alert you to the changes in the risk status. For instance, you can implement best practices and standards to avoid clinical risks, allocate contingency funds to mitigate financial and operational risks, outsource or insure to shift some or all of the risk to a third party, acknowledge and monitor the risk while preparing for any consequences if it occurs, or take advantage of positive risks such as opportunities for innovation.

5 Monitor and control risks

The fifth step is to monitor and control the risks throughout the project lifecycle, by tracking their status, performance, and outcomes. You should also review and update your risk register, which is a document that records all the information about the identified risks and their responses. You should also communicate and report the risk information to your project team and stakeholders, and solicit their feedback and input. Monitoring and controlling risks will help you identify and respond to new or changing risks, and evaluate the effectiveness of your risk response strategies.

6 Learn from risks

The final step is to learn from the risks and their outcomes, by conducting a risk audit or a lessons learned session at the end of the project or at key milestones. You should document and share the lessons learned, such as what went well, what went wrong, what could have been done better, and what can be improved for future projects. Learning from risks will help you enhance your risk management skills, knowledge, and practices, and increase your project success.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?