Reducing failures in daily medical practice: Healthcare failure mode and effect analysis combined with computer...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Safety
• Risk Analysis

Background:

• Complex healthcare processes pose risks to patient safety.
• Traditional risk analysis methods like HFMEA have limitations in reproducibility and validity.
• Human interpretation in risk assessment can lead to subjective outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and apply a novel risk analysis approach, HFMEA-CS, for complex healthcare settings.
• To overcome the limitations of traditional HFMEA by integrating computer simulation.
• To improve patient safety by analyzing and enhancing drug adherence in a specific patient pathway.

Main Methods:

• Combined Healthcare Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (HFMEA) with Computer Simulation (CS).
• Applied HFMEA-CS to analyze drug adherence in pheochromocytoma patients' surgical admission to discharge process.
• Utilized a multidisciplinary team for failure mode identification and scoring, supported by simulation for prioritization and impact prediction.

Main Results:

• The HFMEA-CS methodology was successfully applied in a complex healthcare setting.
• Computer simulation aided in prioritizing failure modes and uncovering dependencies.
• Predicted a 12% improvement in drug adherence, reaching 99%.

Conclusions:

• HFMEA-CS is a viable and effective approach for prospective risk analysis in healthcare.
• The method combines expert judgment with quantitative analysis for more reliable outcomes.
• HFMEA-CS is suitable for analyzing human-system interactions in socio-technical healthcare systems.