FMEA / JCAHO
A FMEA, or Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, is a tool originally developed as part of the Apollo Space program at NASA. Its intent is to identify potential failures or errors in a design / process and rank those failures by total impact in descending order. Once the errors are documented and ranked action is taken to prevent those failures from occurring.
Hospitals certified under JCAHO have been required to conduct one FMEA each year, and thus, interest in the healthcare provider arena for proper application of FMEAs has been raised.
Several things need to be considered when using FMEAs. FMEAs are most useful on the provider side if used to identify process failures. They provide a structured and disciplined mechanism to identify potential errors, and as such they are very useful in the future prevention of medical errors if executed properly. Since the FMEA will be conducted assessing the process, it is important to observe and map the process under investigation first hand. An FMEA should never be conducted in the vacuum of a conference room without prior process observation. While a ‘conference-room’ FMEA may suffice under JCAHO, it will not be effective in true medical error prevention.
Secondly, the FMEA, through the mechanism of assigning severity, occurrence and detectability and the subsequent calculation of a risk priority allows the users to sort failures in order of importance. If possible this assignment should be supported by data collected in the process. Lastly, the FMEA can only be effective if action is taken as a result of the work, therefore the determination of not just the action, but also the responsible party and timeline should be captured, both not part of a standard FMEA.
FMEAs can be a very useful tool in moving on organization towards better safety awareness. The JCAHO requirement should be seen as an opportunity to expand beyond just fulfilling requirements to reaching higher levels of patient safety.
Our staff will be glad to teach your associates how to utilize the FMEA in the most beneficial way. We are also glad to support your FMEA work and the subsequent follow up actions should you have a need for such services.
For more information please contact us.