Healthcare System Reliability
Preventable medical errors are a problem in healthcare system and are on the rise. Despite the use of Root Cause Analysis (RCA), the problems of preventable medical errors persist. Root Cause Analysis is a Human Reliability Analysis method being used to investigate preventable medical errors in healthcare. 
The persistence of medical errors suggests that there is either an absence of reliability engineering analysis or a gap in the reliability analysis currently being performed.
Given the numerous errors, patients demand for high service quality, liability suits and public pressure, healthcare administrators are making it critical to embrace the application of reliability engineering analysis. Reliability is defined by the Institute for healthcare Improvement as failure free operation over time. It may be necessary to change process design, perform reliability analysis or become more dependent on risk management to avoid medical errors.
Claims or Medical Errors
- Untimely, inappropriate, inadvertent activation of controls.
- Departure from following stated instructions and procedures.
- A patient was seriously injured by over-infusion because a nurse mistakenly read the number 7 as 1.
- A human error caused a fatal radiation-overdose accident involving the Therac radiation therapy device.
Reliability in healthcare translates into using valid risk based measures for causes, consequence and risk associated with medical errors. LebenTech consultant collaborates with your team to develop models for improving reliability. The model includes:
- Performing benchmark studies to measure baseline performance.
- Identifying evidence based interventions that eliminate the errors.
- Selecting interventions with the most impact on outcome and converting to practical solutions.
- Developing and establishing measures or matrices for reliability performance of system.
- Ensure patients received evidenced based interventions.
We can Design your Healthcare System for Reliability
Reliability begins with design of the system. The design is constantly improved through verifications and validations process. A systematic approach for designing the system includes the following tasks:
- Assessment of the current reliability using the above model and past data
- Identification of weak links and allocates higher reliability goals to them
- Perform Failure Mode and Effects Analysis on weak links within the healthcare system to predict potential failures or medical errors and determine strategies to achieve the desired reliability goals
- Apply Fault Tree Analysis technique to quantify the risk when the causes of failure identified in the FMEA are too complex
- Redesign the healthcare system based on critical failures identify and using process and reliability improvement techniques that will have the most impact on the outcome
- Verify that the work done on the FMEA and the design improvements was done using divergent brainstorming and convergent solutions
- Define reliability specifications and document in a reliability program
- Validate that the new design is achieving the reliability goals and that the outcome is sustainable
Our consultant utilizes reliability principles to design systems that compensate for the limits of human ability, improve safety and the rate at which a system consistently produces desired outcomes. Our experience in various industries enables us to collaborate with your team to develop a customized reliability system that meets criteria for a high reliability organization.
Application of Proven Methodology to Perform
- Health Hazard Analysis.
- Medical Device Validation.
- Human Reliability Analysis
- Engineering Risk Assessment.
- Reliability Analysis of Medical System
Cost Benefits of Investing in Reliability
Investment Can Provide and Enable:
- High Return on Investment [ROI].
- Confidence in service quality by assessment.
- Improvement in medical service reliability and quality.
- Reduction in patient complaints and liability suits.
- Prevent or reduce the probability of system failure.
- Improvements in patient safety and effectiveness of medical device.
- Potential reduction in medical errors and improved process control.
Our Consultants Help you to:
- Minimize the error liability of the individual.
- Reduce the error vulnerability of the task elements.
- Discover, assess and then eliminate error – producing factors.
- Diagnose organizational factors that create error – producing factors.
We provide reliable implementation of proven interventions through our reliability engineering service. Our consultant will work with your team to develop reliability specification for your operation as well as a reliability program. We encourage you to select us as your technology partner and we can help you work towards achieving the goal of failure free performance and extend this performance over years instead of quarters.