Revised Risk Priority Number in Failure Mode and Effects Analysis Model from the Perspective of Healthcare System

Methodology of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is known as an important risk assessment tool and accreditation requirement by many organizations. For prioritizing failures, the index of "risk priority number (RPN)" is used, especially for its ease and subjective evaluations of occurrence, the severity and the detectability of each failure. In this study, we have tried to apply FMEA model more compatible with health-care systems by redefining RPN index to be closer to reality.

We used a quantitative and qualitative approach in this research. In the qualitative domain, focused groups discussion was used to collect data. A quantitative approach was used to calculate RPN score.

We have studied patient's journey in surgery ward from holding area to the operating room. The highest priority failures determined based on (1) defining inclusion criteria as severity of incident (clinical effect, claim consequence, waste of time and financial loss), occurrence of incident (time - unit occurrence and degree of exposure to risk) and preventability (degree of preventability and defensive barriers) then, (2) risks priority criteria quantified by using RPN index (361 for the highest rate failure). The ability of improved RPN scores reassessed by root cause analysis showed some variations.

We concluded that standard criteria should be developed inconsistent with clinical linguistic and special scientific fields. Therefore, cooperation and partnership of technical and clinical groups are necessary to modify these models.