American International Journal of Social Science Vol. 3, No. 3; May 2014 178 The Risk Management in Italian Healthcare Organizations: Threats become Opportunities Stefania De Simone Researcher in Organizational Behavior Institute of Service Industry Research National Research Council IRAT - CNR Via G. Sanfelice 8 - 80134 Naples (Italy) Anna Esposito Contract Researcher in Human Resource Management Institute of Service Industry Research National Research Council IRAT - CNR Via G. Sanfelice 8 - 80134 Naples (Italy) Abstract Italian healthcare organizations are shifting from the administrative approach to the problem of risk towards prevention logic which considers potential mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. The numerous advantages offered by the risk management system can have a positive impact on the quality of patient care, on the workers by protecting them from allegations of malpractice, and finally on the organizational image. Keywords: healthcare system, risk, clinical governance 1. Introduction "We can learn from our mistakes unless we tie ourselves to an ideology, and therefore we are persuaded that we know and that, if we know, we don’t learn anything. This is certainly the most dangerous error" (Karl Popper, 1972). In recent years there has been a significant attention to errors and accidents in the health care delivery, which arises in part from the increase of articles in scientific literature and media, and mainly from the new Italian cultural and jurisprudential orientation to increase biological and existential damages. There has been the crisis of the traditional role of health insurance organizations: more and more organizations withdraw from the market assurance products for medical professional liability; other organizations offer products only to less risky specializations; other organizations still refuse to assure professionals who have already incurred claims, or expose only limited ceilings. The Italian Pact for Health 2013-2015 is based on quality and safety criteria of health care, in order to guarantee Essential Levels of Assistance in the whole Italian territory. A special Italian parliamentary commission of inquiry has as main task the identification of the critical issues in the field of organization and management, which can lead to error in the health field or waste of public financial funds. For the realization of these activities, it’s necessary to make investments and to rationalize health care spending. In Italy in 2011only the 7.1% of Gross Domestic Product is devoted to the health sector, less than the United States or other European countries did. The management philosophy aimed at improving the quality requires the study of risks (Esposito, 2013). A health care organization could reduce the cost of "non-quality" through the clinical risk management, a set of actions to improve the quality of the health service and the patient safety. The knowledge and the classification of the typologies of errors is a prerequisite for subsequent actions of risk analysis and mitigation.