Clinical risk management in anaesthesia

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. Key points

• Risk management is central to the everyday work ofthe anaesthetist.
• Anaesthetists should be involved in riskmanagement at departmental and trust level.
• Prospective riskmanagement should be an ongoing day-to-day activity.
• A majorpatient safety incident should result in a root cause analysis.
• Riskmanagement is a method of dealing with uncertainty.

  Risk is ubiquitous in medicine but anaesthesia is an unusualspeciality as it routinely involves deliberately placing thepatient in a situation that is intrinsically full of risk. Patientsafety, the anaesthetist's raison d'être and the heartof the clinical governance agenda, depends on management ofthose risks; consequently, anaesthetists have been at the forefrontof clinical risk management (CRM). Formal risk assessment andmanagement in other industries such as aviation and deep seadiving are now routine, and the use of these processes has beensuccessful in producing clear and identifiable improvementsin safety. . . . [Full Text of this Article]