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Risk Management Framework
Rasmussen’s (1997; Rasmussen & Svedung, 2000) framework for risk management adopts a broad systems perspective, identifying the various actors–both individuals and organizations—in a complex sociotechnical system. The figure below provides a representative example, although the precise number of levels and their labels can vary across industries. For example, in the context of health care, this hierarchy would include, from bottom to top: patients, providers, department managers, hospital CEOs, professional regulators and associations, government (i.e., civil servants and politicians), and the media. Knowingly or not, each of these individuals and stakeholders makes decisions that affect patient safety.
Figure 1. Various levels of a complex sociotechnical
system involved in risk management. Adapted from Rasmussen (1997).
This framework points to a critical factor that is overlooked by all horizontal research efforts—the additional need for “vertical” alignment across the levels in Figure 1. Decisions at higher levels should propagate down the hierarchy, whereas information about the current state of affairs should propagate up the hierarchy. These interdependencies across levels of the hierarchy are critical to the successful functioning of a system as a whole. Even if researchers do an excellent job at conducting horizontal research on a particular topic, they may have little impact on reducing risk unless vertical integration is also achieved.
Unfortunately, the holy grail of vertical integration is becoming more important yet more difficult to achieve. As shown on the right of Figure 1, the various layers of a complex sociotechnical system are increasingly subjected to external disruptive forces. In today’s dynamic society, these external forces are stronger and change more frequently than ever before. When different levels of the system are being subjected to different pressures, each operating at different time scales, it is imperative that efforts to improve safety within a level be coordinated with the changing constraints imposed by other levels. Without coordinating the changes at various levels of a sociotechnical systems, the external forces acting on the system may unintentionally be “preparing the stage for an accident”.
Rasmussen’s framework can be used to identify why accidents occur and it outlines a number of broad system design implications that can be adopted to reduce risk in complex sociotechnical systems, thereby safeguarding the public and the environment.
References
- Rasmussen, J. (1997). Risk management in a dynamic society: A modelling
problem. Safety Science, 27, 183-213.
- Rasmussen, J., & Svedung, I. (2000). Proactive
risk management in a dynamic society. Karlstad, Sweden: Swedish Rescue Services
Agency.
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