The growth of health care costs as regards GDP and public expenditure in all countries reflects, on the one hand, the growth of health demand probably due to the change in the global epidemiological landscape and, on the other hand, a steady rise in health costs, significantly influencing the sustainability of the world health system. The international scientific literature and the laws of several countries have recently focused on treatment safety, with a growing interest in the issue of risk management and control in public health firms, aiming to curb costs and improve treatment outcome. In the healthcare organization clinical risk management (CRM) is a particular model of risk management. By concentrating on the clinical process it can be identified with the set of procedures, instruments and specific activities the staff refers to in order to identify, analyze, manage and stem the risks which are potentially dangerous for the general organization and to preserve the original standards in quality and safety.The clinical risk can be defined as the chance a patient has of falling victim to an adverse event. Therefore, the typical risk profile healthcare companies deal with fall into a specific category of pure risks, i.e., those responsibility-risks ensuing adverse events caused by clinical errors. This research aims: (i) to investigate how clinical risk management is implemented in Italian healthcare organizations; (ii) to understand whether the adoption of a new systematic approach, such as lean management, can affect on risk management processes. The research method to be used is the case study.
Key-Words: Health and care organizations, clinical risk management, lean management, care processes, healthcare organization, kaizen, business model
