The Bowtie diagram: a simple tool for analysis and planning in anesthesia

The purpose is to show the advantages of a Bowtie diagram as a versatile tool for displaying and understanding the evolvement and management of critical incidents.

The Bowtie diagram has been used recently in anesthesia to depict critical incidents having been used in high-risk industries for several decades. This diagram displays the progression from latent factors to potential harm in five steps.

The Bowtie diagram combines the features of a fault tree and an event tree with the adverse event, known as the Top Event separating the two sections. The fault tree is similar in concept to a Swiss Cheese diagram and the event tree similar in concept to an emergency management algorithm. Preventive barriers and escalation measures are used to detect and trap abnormal states. If these fail, the event proceeds to a crisis, leading to the Top Event, a time for making decisions. A recovery state follows, which depicts an emergency state mandating immediate life or limb-saving management to recover from the crisis. Finally, in the aftermath state, a time for reflection and learning, ultimate outcomes are shown in the right-hand column.

The Bowtie Diagram. Designed and created by Yasmin Endlich, Martin D. Culwick and Stavros N. Prineas, http://links.lww.com/COAN/A68.