Risk Management and Internal Audit in Integrated Process Management of Hospitals

The paper focuses on the issue of improving patient safety, which is now a global issue. Foreign studies have shown that approximately 10 % of hospitalizations occur at patient’s damage. The Czech Republic, respectively Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, is currently developing a series of activities to promote the Luxembourg Declaration (Luxembourg Declaration on Patient Safety), which was approved at the EU Member States Summit and calls on the EU Member States to deal with this issue. This publication supports the above-mentioned activities. There is proposed the introduction of Quality Management System (QMS), which would include the risk management.Furthermore, there are described experiences from one large public hospital in the Czech Republic with incorporated certain features of risk management into the competency of internal auditors. a research took place to evaluate the significance of health and non-health risks in terms of their impact on the organization. 47 hospital staff members on a variety of managerial positions participated in this survey. The questionnaires surveying health risks paid particular attention to physical, chemical, biological and combined risks. The questionnaires researching non-health risks included questions on general, accounting and budget risks.The risk analysis shows that the most important risk for health facilities is the biological risk of blood and tissue collection, manipulation with biomaterials in laboratories, storage of used needles, shards of ampoules, damaged glass material and handling laundry used by patients. The risk analysis shows that the highest proportion of risk with a moderate and significant impact belongs to a group of general risk. As a significant risk is in this particular case evaluated the behaviour of employees in public, which has an essential impact on the image of the hospital as a whole and the perception by patients.