Adult residential care facilities face numerous risks on a daily basis – falls, medication administration errors, elopements, etc. Ignoring these potential risks places adult residential care facilities at risk for lawsuits, decreased reputation, and loss of residents. Risk management tools are highly utilized by many businesses to minimize risk – including adult residential care facilities. With the plethora of information available online, how do these facilities know if they need a risk management tool, are implementing the right tools, or are utilizing them the correct way? It is a difficult path to navigate for many administrators.
Simplify the Process
The key to simplifying the risk management process is to create a path and plan for your employees to utilize and follow. A risk management plan isn’t over complicated when you know where to look. Creating a plan increases safety for your employees, residents, and visitors. Follow these steps to implement a risk management plan in your adult residential care facility.
The Right Way

1. Quarterly meetings. Hold quarterly meetings with your staff to review your risk management plan and tools. Having the entire team involved gives them a sense of ownership. A sense of ownership makes it easier to introduce change because they feel like it is their idea.
2. Look at the facts. Review the facts from the past quarter. How many falls occurred? Were there any medication errors? Did you have any citations on your state inspection?
3. Identify a need. Use the facts to identify a need for new tools or a need to re-evaluate existing tools. Once you determine a need, look for easy to implement tools, or make updates to existing tools.
4. Educate. Schedule a training to educate your employees. Explain the benefits, reasons, and how the change directly impacts their daily procedures. Give them time to ask questions. If possible, have them act out different scenarios to get comfortable with new procedures.
5. Implement. Determine a launch date the new or updated risk management tools go in effect. Replace any outdated versions with the new tools.
6. Audit. Audit new tools at your next quarterly meeting. Did it impact the facts in a positive way? The key to properly using risk management tools is reviewing their effectiveness over time.

   Minimize risk in your adult residential care facility by utilizing risk management tools. Follow these six steps for effective implementation and use.