<H4><U><FONT FACE=BOOKMAN OLD STYLE SERIF>ERM-BCP-COOP</FONT></U></H4> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER><FONT FACE=HELVETICA ARIAL><H1><B>Ignore risk manager’s <BR>Advice or pay penalty</B></H1></FONT></DIV>

THE LAKELAND (FL) LEDGER¹ REPORTED THAT Michael Petruccelli, the attorney for the risk manager, Patricia Wise-Youngren sued Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center for firing the risk manager after she filed several complaints about LPN practices at the facility.

According to Petruccelli,

“It was our contention that she was unlawfully retaliated against for bringing up concerns about unauthorized practice for LPNs outside the scope they are permitted under law, rules and regulations.

The court, agreeing with the plaintiff, awarded Wise-Youngren US$1 million.

The Ledger article states that

• Heart of Florida permitted and encouraged licensed practical nurses to administer cardiac arrest medications and narcotics and to engage in other acts that were to be completed only by registered nurses.
• Wise-Youngren complained of the practice and refused to participate during a staff meeting in March and April 2014. She informed upper management the hospital “needed to self-report the conduct to appropriate governmental agencies” but was told it was not an issue and the CHS legal team advised the conduct did not need to be reported.
• She filed four internal complaints between March and May 2014.

Wise-Youngren is a licensed risk manager and was employed to oversee patient safety issues.

In Florida, a licensed medical facility risk manager must meet certain requirements in addition to general risk management experience.²

The bottom line for risk management practitioners is to know there is recourse when a client ignores the practitioner’s advice and because of that refusal to act the client (a) is in violation of applicable laws, or (b) endangers a person’s well being.

Will a non-disclosure agreement prevent the practitioner from “whistle blowing?” Probably not, but to be safe, contact a lawyer with experience in the field. I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on tv.

The basic problem with risk management – enterprise as I practice it or medical as in the case of Wise-Youngren – is that a practitioner can “lead a horse to water,” but the horse cannot be forced to drink (act on the practitioner’s advice) – with the two caveats above: violation of law or endangering a person’s well being.

Any risk management practitioner with more than a little time in the business knows that too often clients ignore the professional’s identification of risks and recommendations to avoid or mitigate those identified risks.

How can a risk management practitioner protect himself or herself.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

I once performed a risk assessment for an international company. Local management ignored my recommendations and I found myself no longer employed by the company.

Later, when a disaster did occur and the company suffered losses it could have avoided had it implemented my recommendations, I sent a CD copy of my findings and recommendations to the corporate CEO. I later learned that a number of my recommendations had been implemented. (This is the same company that engaged a major corporation to create a “business continuity plan” for it – the plan was no more than an IT disaster recovery plan, and not even a very good plan.)

Risk managers, enterprise or niche, are the Jacob Cohens³ of professionals.

Perhaps this may change if practitioners become “whistle blowers.”

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Sources

1. http://tinyurl.com/yblaucw3

2. https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/395.10974

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Dangerfield

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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