A Novel Approach for Evaluating the Risk of Health Care Failure Modes

作者：Chang Dong Shang; Chung Jenq Hann^*; Sun Kuo Lung; Yang Fu Chiang

来源：Journal of Medical Systems, 2012, 36(6): 3967-3974.

DOI：10.1007/s10916-012-9868-5

• Health care
• Patient safety
• Medical error
• Failure mode and effects analysis
• Data envelopment analysis

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) can be employed to reduce medical errors by identifying the risk ranking of the health care failure modes and taking priority action for safety improvement. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel approach of data analysis. The approach is to integrate FMEA and a mathematical tool-Data envelopment analysis (DEA) with %26quot;slack-based measure%26quot; (SBM), in the field of data analysis. The risk indexes (severity, occurrence, and detection) of FMEA are viewed as multiple inputs of DEA. The practicality and usefulness of the proposed approach is illustrated by one case of health care. Being a systematic approach for improving the service quality of health care, the approach can offer quantitative corrective information of risk indexes that thereafter reduce failure possibility. For safety improvement, these new targets of the risk indexes could be used for management by objectives. But FMEA cannot provide quantitative corrective information of risk indexes. The novel approach can surely overcome this chief shortcoming of FMEA. After combining DEA SBM model with FMEA, the two goals-increase of patient safety, medical cost reduction-can be together achieved.

• 出版日期2012-12
• 单位中央民族大学