RADI230 Quality Assurance

1, The Office of Inspector General (OIG) develops a yearly work plan. This work plan outlines the many different areas that the OIG will focus on for fraud issues in the next year. A link to the 2009 OIG Work Plan has been provided in this unit's study.

Review the 2009 OIG Work Plan. Select one topic area within the work plan. As the risk manager responsible for this area, discuss what you would do to ensure that your facility is in compliance.

Begin your post with an introduction of the specific area and the OIG's concern. Delineate the steps that you will take to ensure that your facility is in full compliance with this area. 

2.Investigate early warning systems in risk management. Pick a specific health care organization type (for example, hospital, emergency department, physician's office, laboratory, dental office, health plan, et cetera). Describe at least two elements that would be needed for an effective early warning system for this specific health care organization

3, What is your opinion of the brand equity for REI and its competitive positioning in the marketplace? What competitive factors are in play for REI? Include any questions you have in your posting.

1.Hospitals should have an effective plan for marinating the food security. Thus, being the risk manager for the food security, it is my responsibility to ensure the security in managing the food service in the hospital. The steps to be promoted will involve reviewing the food quality standard according to the benchmark being set by the Food and Drug Administration (Platt & Carnahan, 2012). It will help to maintain the desired quality standard. Moreover, the employees responsible will be trained accordingly to maintain the food quality. Periodic review will be done in order to check the quality being maintained in the process. It will aware the employees about the quality control and they will feel more motivated to maintain the quality standard to pass the periodic review.

The infrastructure and the premises of the food production facilities in the hospital will also be maintained in order to prevent and contamination (Caswell, 2012). It is due to the reason that, hygiene factor is also important in maintaining the food quality standard. Thus, the production facilities will be designed in such a way that it will prevent contamination of any diseases in the unit from outside. Accordingly, the dress code and the hygiene factor for the staffs will also be maintained to ensure the zero contamination. Thus, it can be concluded that, maintaining all these factors will ensure that the food quality can be effectively maintained in the hospitals and it will effectively comply with the benchmark being set.

2.All types of organization, especially the health care organizations are more vulnerable to different risks. Thus, early warning system should be initiated and implemented in the organizations in order to effectively monitor the risk potential in the organization and identify the occurrence of risk at its early stage. It involves various technologies and approaches which helps in mitigation of the risks involved. In a hospital, one of the promising early warning systems can be the initiation of rapid response team. This team will operate in the general medical floors and will monitor the probability of the cardiac arrest of the patients (McNeil & Bryden, 2013). They will be equipped and trained to response in the initial stage. This will help in mitigating the risk of life being involved with the patients in the general medical floors. This system is required due to the reason that, general medical floors attract less attention than that of the intensive care units.

Another early warning system will be the smoke detection device in the hospital premises. The risk of loss in case of fire in the hospitals is of more probability due to the reason that evacuation of the patients takes time. Thus, smoke detection device will help to detect any smoke generating and will help to identify any potential threat of fire in the hospital. Responsible team will be assigned and trained to detect the area of origin upon notified by the smoke detection system. They will act as quick response team and will effectively identify and mitigate the risk.

3.The key factor for the brand equity of REI is their outdoor oriented activities. Majority of their products are being centered on the outdoor and adventurous activities. Moreover, according to their information, they already have more than 3.5 million active members. Thus, positive word of mouth is being generated by these members, which also helps in enhancing the brand equity for the organization. Compared to its competitors, they are effectively maintaining their members rather than having just customers. Thus, relationship marketing is being done more effectively by them than their competitors. Moreover, it should also be considered that the most of its competitors are operating in the single product line, whereas, REI is catering to the diverse customers by offering sporting goods, Travel equipment along with providing outdoor vacations.

Omni channel marketing is also helping them in gaining competitive advantage in the market. Through the initiation of the online portal, they are catering to more number of customers which are out of reach of their retail outlets, eventually leading to increased market share (Wagner III & Hollenbeck, 2014). In addition, majority of the organizations in this sector is operating as private organizations. On the other hand, they are operating as cooperatives which make the members as the co owner in the organization. Thus, the rate of customer loyalty of REI compared to their competitors is more effective. Though there are various substitutes in the market but the customer approach of them is creating competitive advantage for them.

References

Caswell, J. A. (2012). Economics of food safety. Springer Science & Business Media.

McNeill, G., & Bryden, D. (2013). Do either early warning systems or emergency response teams improve hospital patient survival? A systematic review. Resuscitation, 84(12), 1652-1667.

Platt, R., & Carnahan, R. (2012). The US Food and Drug Administration's Mini?Sentinel Program. pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, 21(S1), 1-303.

Wagner III, J. A., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (2014). Organizational behavior: Securing competitive advantage.