Factors affecting enterprise risk management readiness in hospitals : a survey in North Lebanon and Akkar

Abstract

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is a growing topic during the past decade. Its application began in financial industries and then emerged to the healthcare industry. However, its implementation requires a high level of readiness which will be measured through this paper in the Lebanese healthcare context. Different factors were chosen based on an extensive literature review, relating to the characteristics of the hospitals (age, location, size, accreditation, and ownership), respondents’ profile (age, years of experience, current position, gender, and main tasks), and the level of openness culture. Also, we built a risk inventory based on previous research to study it in the Lebanese context. Twenty-eight hospitals in North Lebanon and Akkar participated in the study, which characteristics were extracted from the Ministry of Public Health and hospital’s webpages with two-hundreds and nineteen respondents who filled a face-to-face and online administered questionnaire. The findings reported that only the accreditation status, the level of openness, the years of experience, and hospitals’ age have a relationship with the level of readiness, with the years of experience showing a negative relationship; it is believed to be caused by the higher age of the respondents who are not educated with the modern education system and the new management strategies being developed. Finally, limitations faced, few research implications and suggestions for more advanced research are discussed.