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FMEAs identify risks before they become disasters

Quality Improvement Monitor, September 21, 2007

Hospitals that want to identify risks before they turn into tragedies should use FMEA as a diagnostic tool to lead them to the biggest dangers lurking in their organizations.

Many facilities confuse FMEAs with root cause analysis (RCA), but the two are quite different, according to Ken Rohde, a senior consultant for The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro in Marblehead, MA. FMEAs, he says, are proactive. RCAs, by contrast, are reactive and are done only after hospitals have already paid a steep price for their errors.

"Hospitals are beginning to see the inherent benefit of doing FMEAs," says Rohde, author of the new book Failure Modes and Effects Analysis: Templates and Tools to Improve Patient Safety, published by HCPro. "You can find unidentified risks by going out and looking for them."

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