Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) and root cause analysis (RCA) are both tools used in healthcare to identify and reduce risks to patients. FMEA proactively identifies risks while RCA identifies the cause after an event has occurred.
FMEAs were originally used in the engineering industry during new product design (Mulligan & Nechodom, 2008, p. 662) and over time were adopted into healthcare to reduce potential harm to patients.
“FMEA involves a multidisciplinary team mapping out a high-risk process of care, identifying the failures that can occur, and then characterizing each of these in terms of probability of occurrence, severity of effects and detectability , to give a risk priority number used to identify failures most in need
FMEAs were originally used in the engineering industry during new product design (Mulligan & Nechodom, 2008, p. 662) and over time were adopted into healthcare to reduce potential harm to patients.
“FMEA involves a multidisciplinary team mapping out a high-risk process of care, identifying the failures that can occur, and then characterizing each of these in terms of probability of occurrence, severity of effects and detectability , to give a risk priority number used to identify failures most in need