Risk management from the perspective of hospital management

Adverse effects or events (AE) are partly avoidable. Only identification of their possible causes can allow effective strategies to be adopted to reduce them. Among these causes are the complexity of the healthcare processes, the development of technology for methods of diagnosis and treatment, difficulties in the reporting of cases, and the reduction in safety-oriented management policies. We propose that meso-management (defined as an intermediate link between health policy and clinical management) should establish measures aimed at decreasing AE through: orienting the organization to processes and more specifically to the patient, improving vertical and transversal information systems, supporting the principle of patient autonomy, which is recognized by law, activating safety mechanisms, and searching for solutions in the little exploited relationship between the health sector and the legal world.