Case Studies

The Alliance of Blood Operators (ABO) needed a coherent risk management framework to guide decision-making on the delivery of blood services by its member organizations, which would help produce consistent decision-making processes and outcomes across the different national jurisdictional and regulatory structures. The RBDM approach was meant to support a shift in risk decision-making in national blood services organizations from one focused on minimizing all risks to blood quality and supply, with little concern for costs, to a risk-based approach in which resources are allocated according to risk and the application of financial resources and management rigour is proportional to the risk they are addressing.

Environment and Climate Change Canada, with Health Canada, wanted to understand perceptions of the health risks from smoke from wildfires and from residential burning (winter heating using wood stoves, and fireplaces), and public health communication approaches and messages used in these contexts. This information would support revisions of the health messages used in the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). The AQHI expresses the health risk associated with three common urban air pollutants, and is calculated at monitoring stations in communities across Canada to inform the public of the risk level of current local air quality conditions.

The project began with a series of consultations with UN-Habitat at UNON in Nairobi. In addition to Cemil Alyanak and Nicholas you, the project grew to include many key stakeholders both within UN-Habitat and from other organizations. Among the key organizations included in the early stages were United Cities and Local Governments, Cities Alliance, the World Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Cisco, and UN agencies interested in urban health, notably the World Health Organization.

Under the supervision of Director Purcell and his cabinet, the six-month project began with an internal review of attitudes, projects, responsibilities and management reporting lines. The work uncovered multiple inconsistencies and inefficiencies. What’s more, there were very real risk consequences at the operational level.

The original mandate aimed to find a new direction for the world renowned International Herald Tribune just as both the World Wide Web was in its infancy, and the newspaper faced increased competition from international and regional editions of established newspapers and magazines such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times.

Geneva International Airport was concerned that its signage was become problematic. Not only was it aesthetically overwhelming after decades of revisions and additions, it was becoming a safety risk with incidents resulting from misreading of cryptic graphics and conflicting directional arrows. In addition, the airport was suffering from traffic pattern issues, both for automobiles outside the terminal and passengers inside the terminal both air-side and land-side.

The review involved an analysis of the events and processes that led to public criticism of Health Canada’s handling of the drug company’s recall of a contraceptive drug due to packaging errors.  The evaluation consisted of several components. First, a review and analysis were conducted of the regulatory and procedural basis of the department’s roles responsibilities and powers as set out in the relevant legislation and regulations, and policy and guidance documents. Second, key individuals who had been involved in the response to the recall, or were in roles with related responsibilities, were interviewed.  Third, through the interviews and external…

RSI was tasked with providing scientific advice and content for a nuclear power reactor licensing process in an OECD country. The nuclear safety commission in question regulates and licenses all nuclear reactors in the country, and requires a full scope of technical information for licensing processes. This commission also expects that these documents are written to be understood by members of the general public who may follow the licensing process and attend the public hearings.  This is important for the commission’s objective of ensuring that the licence application and approval process is fully transparent and accessible to the public.