The need for risk management to evolve to assure a culture of safety.

There is a need for the traditional risk management model, which focuses on department based risk assessment, loss management and risk financing, to evolve to enable it to become more responsive to the increasing demands for safety and accountability imposed on the current US healthcare system. The risk management focus must become more strategic and systems based, and less crisis orientated and individual provider based, in order to provide its greatest value to the organization and the patients those organizations serve.