Modeling Evaluation of Clinical Risk Management Policies

Objective: Clinical errors reduce patient's safety, damage their health and even can be cause of death. On the other hand, it leads to the loss of the physician’s image and hospital's brand. According to the World Health Organization’s report, medical errors are the eighth cause of people death. Having an appropriate clinical risk management system as a systematic tool is crucial for minimizing errors and preventing systematic errors. It requires identifying the systemic structure of the problematic behavior generator as well as finding efficient improvement policies. Methods: The present research focuses on identifying the systemic structure affecting the occurrence of clinical errors in hospitals with System Dynamics approach. Based on this methodology, after mapping the system structure, feedback loops are represented. Also, by presenting a simulation model, it is possible to have a model-based assessment of management policies. Results:The results show that management policies such as implementing Electronic Health Record and clinical governance and also creation patient safety culture have a significant effect on reducing clinical errors. Among them, the promoting patient safety culture is introduced as the most effective policy. Conclusion: In Iran’s health system, despite the growth of health infrastructure and new improvement policies, medical errors continue to increase with increasing trends, and this has become one of the important issues of health policy makers. Infrastructure development and efforts to improve performance indicators without having a systemic insight of the problem will not reduce clinical errors in hospitals and health centers.