Staff Pick: 21 Questions

Role at HIROC: I am a Healthcare Risk Management Coordinator working from HIROC’s Winnipeg office.

Has been at HIROC since: June of 2017. In that time I have had the pleasure of meeting with many of our western subscribers to demo HIROC’s Integrated Risk Management (IRM) – Risk Register application.

Best part of the job: I worked in healthcare for seven years prior to joining HIROC. I love that I get to use that experience to assist healthcare organizations with risk management – my day is never dull!

One resource Jodi often recommends to subscribers is HIROC’s 21 Questions: Guidance for healthcare boards on what they should ask senior leaders about risk. Here’s what Jodi had to say about her Staff Pick.

When speaking to subscribers I often find myself referring to 21 Questions – Guidance for healthcare boards on what they should ask senior leaders about risk resource. This resource is incredibly valuable because in order to affect real change, risk management should be supported and understood at the top – by an organization’s Board of Directors.  

21 Questions was created in collaboration with HIROC subscribers containing exactly that – 21 questions that boards of healthcare organizations should be asking in order to carry out their governance function of risk oversight. The resource can help boards develop critical knowledge about organizational risk and the awareness that a continuous, proactive, and systematic approach to risk management is key.  

Within the document, each of the 21 questions contains recommended best practices. The resource also includes:

• A case study on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Enquiry
• A sample Risk Management Board Governance policy with Risk Register Report

I always encourage the senior leaders I connect with to pass along a copy of 21 Questions to their Board of Directors. I have heard how it helps leaders engage their board on a different level and align priorities. It’s really about having a conversation about risk and it has the potential to help identify organizational risk that leadership teams may not have considered before.

I often find myself referring to this resource when I meet with healthcare organizations to demo HIROC’s Integrated Risk Management (IRM) – Risk Register. This application assists organizations in assessing, prioritizing, acting on, and reporting strategic risk from an organizational-wide aggregate perspective. I’m always pleased to share that the Risk Register is free for HIROC subscribers. 

If you have questions about 21 Questions or HIROC’s IRM application, please contact our team at riskmanagement@hiroc.com.

Jodi Carruthers is Healthcare Risk Management Coordinator at HIROC