Today's professional hospital risk manager faces new and exciting challenges. Though the risk manager's job traditionally centered around preserving the financial integrity of the institution and making its environment safe, the job's focus has now broadened to include the prevention of patient injury and the promotion of quality service. The competitive environment of today's health care industry, coupled with rising malpractice verdicts, defense costs, and insurance premiums, has forced hospital administrators and physicians to respond by placing increased emphasis on development systems to monitor, promote, and guarantee quality of service. Licensing agencies and professional organizations now describe minimum standards for risk management programs. These standards include active medical staff involvement and support, support of the administrative or governing body, appropriate operational linkages between the departments of quality assurance and risk management, and an increased focus on the evaluation of high-risk activity occurring within the health care setting. Though the directives are clear, their implementation can be difficult. The purpose of this Workshop is to provide guidelines and tools that will assist the risk manager or health care executive to analyze his or her current programs and develop new programs that will be more sensitive to quality of care issues. It is the belief of HCBA that once the focus shifts from finances to quality, with the prevention of patient harm or injury being the focus, hospital staff and physicians will engage more in the risk management process. Areas covered include. Analyzing the needs of the institution and establishing a risk management department An overview of the insurance marketplace Management of actual and potential claims