Probabilistic Root Cause Analysis

By Farrokh Alemi, Ph.D.
Jee Vang

Summary

Root Cause and Failure Mode Analyses are commonly performed in hospitals to understand factors that contribute to errors and mistakes. Despite the effort that healthcare professionals are putting into creating these analyses, few models of root causes are validated or used to predict future occurrences of adverse events.  We review the literature on Causal Networks and Bayesian Probability models and show how these tools can be used to improve Root Cause Analysis.  In particular, we show that more in-depth insight can be gained by (1) testing the proposed root causes for structural assumptions of independence (root causes should be conditionally independent of sentinel events given direct causes) and by verifying that the root cause model implies probabilities that are comparable to those reported in the literature or known through experience of the health care organization.  We show how both assumptions and conclusions of Root Cause Analysis can be verified against observed data.

Introduction

Root Cause Analysis, according to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations is a "process for identifying the basic or causal factors that underlie variation in performance, including the occurrence or possible occurrence of a sentinel event."   Sentinel events include medication errors, patients' suicide, procedure complications, wrong site surgery, treatment delay, restraint death, elopement death, assault or rape, transfusion death, and infant abduction.  Direct causes bring about the sentinel event without any other intervening event.  Most direct causes are physically proximate to the sentinel event.  The effect of root causes on sentinel events are always through some direct cause.  Because of accreditation requirements and due to renewed interest in patient safety, many hospitals and clinics are actively conducting Root Cause Analyses.  

When a sentinel event occurs, most employees are focused on the direct causes that have led to the event.  For example, many will claim that the cause of medication error is a failure to check label against the patient's armband.  But this is just the direct cause.  To get to the real reasons, one should ask why did the clinician not check the label against the armband.  The purpose of Root Cause analysis is to go beyond direct and somewhat apparent causes and figure out the underlying reasons for the event.  The objective is to force one to think harder about the source of the problem.  It is possible that the label was not checked against the armband because the label was missing.  Furthermore it is also possible that the label was missing because the computer was not printing.  Then, the root cause is computer malfunction and the direct cause is the failure to check the label against the armband.  Exhorting employees to check the armband against the label is a waste of time, if there is no label to check in the first place.  A focus on direct causes may prevent the sentinel event for a while, but sooner or later the root cause will lead to a sentinel event.  Inattention to root causes promotes palliative solutions that do not work in the long run.  The value of root cause analysis lies in identifying the true, underlying causes.  An investigation that dos not do this is at best a waste of time and resources, and at worst can exacerbate the problems it was intended to fix.  But how do we know if our speculation about the causes of an event are correct?

To make the situation worse, almost all who conduct Root Cause analyses become overconfident about the accuracy of their own insights.  No matter how poorly an analysis is carried out, since there is no way of proving a person wrong, people persist in their own fallacies.   Some are even incredulous about the possibility that their imagined causal influences could be wrong.  They insist on the correctness of their insights because "it is obvious."  Unfortunately, it is not clear why a complex problem, which has led to a sentinel event, which has not been corrected for years, which has been left unaddressed by hundreds of smart people should have such an obvious solution.  After all, if the solution was so obvious why was it not adopted earlier?  Search for obvious solutions contradicts the elusiveness of correcting for sentinel events.  If a sound and reliable method existed for checking the accuracy and consistency of Root Cause Analysis, then employees might correct their misperceptions and not be so overconfident.  

One way to check on accuracy of Root Cause Analysis is to examine time to next sentinel event.  Unfortunately, because sentinel events are rare, one has to wait a long time to see rare events occur again, even if no changes were made.   Thus, the organization may have little solace by marking time as long periods of time are no sign of success and the event may reoccur any day.  An alternative needs to be found to check the accuracy and consistency of Root Cause Analysis without having to wait for the next sentinel incidence. 

Simple methods for checking the accuracy of a Root Cause analysis have not been available to date.  This paper suggests a method for doing so.  As before, clinicians propose a set of causes.  But now several additional steps are taken.  First, probabilities are used to quantify the relationship between causes and effect.  Then, the laws of probability and causal diagrams are examined to see if the suggested causes are consistent with the clinician's other beliefs and with existing objective data.  Through a cycle of testing model assumptions and conclusions against observed data, one improves the accuracy of the analysis and gains new insights into the causes of the sentinel event.

Bayesian Networks

We use a set of techniques that have been developed for analysis of Bayesian Causal Networks to validate Root Cause Analysis.  A Bayesian Causal Network is a mathematical model of the cause and effect relationships and the way these relationships lead to observed statistical patterns of an event.   It consists of a set of nodes, typically pictured as ovals, connected by directed arcs.   Each node represents a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive set of possible events.  For example, Figure 1 shows a Bayesian network with two nodes.  The node "Armband legibility?" has three possible values, exactly one of which must occur and no two can coincide.   These states are "No armband," "Poor" and "Good."  The other node "Armband checked?" has two possible values, "Ok" and "Not ok."  A node with two possible values is called a binary node.  Binary nodes are common in root cause analysis. 

Figure 1:  A simple Bayesian Causal Model with a Local Probability Table for "Armband checked?"

A Bayesian Network is cyclical directed graph, meaning that you cannot start from a node and follow the arcs and arrive back to where you started.  In a Bayesian Network, the relationship between any three nodes can be expressed in one of the following three ways:  serial, diverging or converging structures.  Each of these graph structures can be verified through tests of conditional independence and are further explained through examples below.

The relationship between “Armband legible?” and “Armband Checked?” in Figure 1 is a direct causal relationship.  Bayesian networks can also represent indirect causal relationships, through the concept of conditional independence, as shown in Figure 2. In this example, the root cause “Understaffing” is an indirect cause of the sentinel event. There is no direct arc from the root cause to the sentinel event. This means that the action of the root cause on the sentinel event is indirect, operating through an intermediate cause. That is, the direct cause of a medication error is a fatigued nurse. The root cause, “Understaffing,” is conditionally independent of the sentinel event given the intermediate cause. This means that if we intervene in any given instance to relieve a fatigued nurse, we can break the link from the root cause to the sentinel event, thus reducing the probability of the sentinel event to its nominal level. However, this solution is a palliative one and will not produce a long-term solution unless the root cause is addressed.  Figure 2 illustrates a serial graph structure.  In these structures the sentinel event is independent of the root cause given the known value for direct cause .  

Figure 2: Serial Example of Direct and Root Cause of Medication Error 

Another type of conditional independence occurs when a cause gives rise independently to two different effects, as depicted in Figure 3. This type of graph structure is known as diverging.  In this example, “High blood pressure” and “Diabetes” are conditionally independent given the value of “Weight gain,” but are correlated due to the influence of the common cause. That is, the two effects typically either co-occur (when the common cause is present) or are both absent (when the common cause is absent). This type of conditional independence relationship is quite useful for diagnosing the presence of root causes that can lead to multiple independent effects that each influence different sentinel events. For example, understaffing might lead to several different intermediate causes, each of which could be a precursor of different sentinel events. If several of these precursor events were to be observed, one could infer that the understaffing problem was sufficiently severe to impact patient care. Proactive remediation could then be initiated prior to the occurrence of serious adverse medical outcomes.

Figure 3:  Conditional Independence is Assumed in Diverging Structure

Figures 2 and 3 illustrate serial and diverging causal structures, respectively. As we have seen, a serial structure represents the action of an indirect causal relationship, and a diverging structure represents multiple independent effects of a single cause. In both these cases, the two terminal nodes are conditionally independent of each other given the middle node. A different kind of causal structure, the converging structure, is shown in Figure 4. A converging structure occurs when two different causes can produce a single effect, as when either a fatigued nurse or a missing armband can cause a medication error. Notice that in this case, the terminal nodes are not conditionally independent given the middle node. For example, if the sentinel event is known to occur, and we learn that the armband was present, this will increase our probability that the nurse was unacceptably fatigued. Likewise, if we find that the armband was missing, this will reduce the likelihood that the problem was due to fatigue.

Figure 4:  Two Causes Converging into a Common Effect 

Data can be used, if available, to validate the graph structure of a causal Bayesian network. As we noted above, when a connection is serial or diverging, the terminal nodes are conditionally independent given the intermediate node. This relationship can be evaluated by holding the value of the intermediate node fixed and examining whether the terminal nodes are correlated. In the example of Figure 3, we would compute the correlation of “High blood pressure” and “Diabetes” for all cases in which there was weight gain. We would then calculate the correlation for all cases in which there was no weight gain. If both correlations were statistically indistinguishable from zero, we could conclude that the conditional independence relationships were satisfied. Similar tests can be used to evaluate conditional independence relationships for a diverging structure. In general, in a Bayesian network a node is conditionally independent of all its non-descendents given its parents. This general condition implies a set of correlations that should be equal to zero if the structure is correct. Although it is tedious to verify all these relationships by hand, it is straightforward to automate the verification process, and computer programs have been written to accomplish the task.  

Given the structure of an acyclic causal graph, one can read off the assumed conditional independencies.  Conditional independencies are identified through examining serial or diverging graphs in causal model so that removal of the condition would sever the directional flow from the cause to the effect.  Often, a complicated Root Cause Analysis can be broken into smaller components containing serial and diverging structures.  If these structures are observed and if removal of the condition in these structure would sever the link between the other two nodes, then a conditional dependencies has been identified.  Careful examination of conditional independence relationships is an important element of specifying and validating a Bayesian Network for root cause analysis. 

Validation of Conditional Independence

Once conditional independencies have been identified, the assumptions can be verified by examining data or by querying experts.  If data is available, in a serial structure, the correlations between root cause and sentinel event should equal to the correlation between root cause and direct cause times the correlation between direct cause and sentinel event. 

R _{root cause, sentinel event} = R _{root cause, direct cause} * R _{direct cause, sentinel event} 

In a diverging structure, a similar relationship should hold.  In particular, correlation between the two effects should be equal to the multiplication of the correlation between the cause and each effect:

R _{effect1, effect2} = R _{cause, effect1} * R _{cause, effect2} 

If data are not available, the analyst can ask the investigative team to verify assumptions of conditional independence based on their intuitions.  For example in the serial structure in Figure 2, if we know that the nurse was fatigued, would information about staffing add much to our estimate of the probability of medication error.  Another way to ask the same questions is to ask if understaffing affects medication errors only through creating a fatigued nurse.  In this method, the exclusivity of the mechanism of change is checked.  Still another way of verifying conditional independence is through asking for estimates of various probabilities.  One might ask:

Question:  What do you think is the probability of medication error when the nurse is fatigued?
Answer:  It is higher than when the nurse is not fatigued but still relatively low.
Question:  What do you think is the probability of medication error when the nurse is fatigued and working in understaffed unit.
Answer:  Well I think that understaffing leads to a fatigued nurse but you are not asking about that, are you?
Question:  No, I want to know about probability of medication error in these circumstances. 
Answer:  I would say it is similar to the probability of medication error among fatigued nurses.

If conditional independence is violated, then the serial or diverging structures in the graph are incorrect.  If these conditions are met, then the causal graph is correct.

Lets look at slightly more complicated set of causes.  Figure 4 shows four proposed causes for medication error: understaffing, fatigued nurse, vague communication, and similar medication bottles.  Two root causes (understaffing and vague communications) are shown to precede the direct cause "fatigued nurse."  Removing the node "fatigued nurse" would stop the flow from these two root causes to the medication error.  Therefore, a conditional independence is assumed.  This assumption can be verified either through data or through experts judgments.  Let us assume that if we know that the nurse is fatigued, understaffing adds no additional information to probability of medication error. So this independence is verified.  But suppose that even when the nurse is not fatigued, vague communications may lead to medication errors.     Therefore, the assumption of conditional independence of vague communication and medication error is not met. 

Figure 4:  Four possible causes of medication error & their relations

Therefore, the causal network needs to be modified.  Further exploration may indicate that vague communications, similar bottles, and fatigued nurse directly affect medication errors.  This example shows how verifying conditional independence could help us revise root cause analysis. 

Predictions from Root Causes

The causal model behind the root cause analysis can be used to predict the probability of the sentinel event and this probability can then be compared to the intuitions of the investigative team. The probability of sentinel event can be calculated from each of the direct causes and the probability of direct causes can be calculated from their root causes.

p (Sentinel event, Various causes) =
p (Sentinel event | Direct causes) * p (Direct causes | Direct root causes) * p (Root causes)

To calculate, the probability of sentinel event, S, given a set of different unobserved (C_U) and observed causes (C_i),  we can use the following formula:

The above formula requires one to carefully track numerous probabilities.  Because these calculations are tedious, investigative teams can use widely available software, e.g. Netica (TM), to simplify the calculations.  Download►

An example can demonstrate how such calculations are made using the software .  Suppose that Figure 5 shows root causes for wrong side surgery in a hospital.  First, note that the root causes listed are poor MD training, and over staffing as it contributes to fatigued nurse. These are the root causes because they are independent of sentinel event given the various direct causes.  The direct causes listed are nurse marking the patient wrong, surgeon not following the markings and patient providing wrong information.  These are direct causes because an arc connects them to the sentinel event.

Figure 5:  Root causes for wrong side surgery

Given the Root Cause Analysis in Figure 5, the next step is to estimate the probability of the various cause and effects.  These probabilities are obtained by asking the expert to assess the conditional probabilities implied in the graph.  Each node is conditioned on its direct causes.  For example, to estimate the probability of having a fatigued nurse, the facilitator needs to ask the investigative team the following two questions:

1. In 100 occasions in which the unit is understaffed, what is the frequency of finding a nurse fatigued?

2. In 100 occasions in which the unit is not understaffed, what is the frequency  of finding a nurse fatigued?

Obviously, estimates of probabilities from experts is subjective and therefore may be unreliable.  But if experts are provided with tools (calculators, paper, pencils), brief training in concept of conditional probabilities, available objective data (e.g. JCAHO's reports on prevalence of various causes), and if experts are allowed to discuss their different estimates, then experts' estimates are sufficiently accurate and reliable to provide a useful model.  These probabilities may not be accurate to the last digit, but can provide for a test of consistency.  Suppose that through interviewing experts or through analysis of data of the hospital, the investigative team has estimated the following probabilities:

p(Over staffing) = .40
p( Patient provided wrong information) = .05
p( Poor training) = .12
p(Fatigued nurse | Over staffing) = .30
p(Fatigued nurse | No over staffing) = .05
p( Nurse marked patient wrong | Fatigued nurse) = 0.17
p( Nurse marked patient wrong | Not fatigued nurse) = 0.01
p( Surgeon did not follow markings | Poor training) = 0.10
p( Surgeon did not follow markings | Good training) = 0.01
p( Wrong side surgery | Patient provided wrong information, Nurse marked patient wrong & Surgeon did not follow markings)  is given as in Table 1

Conditions			Probability of wrong side surgery given conditions
Patient provided wrong information	Surgeon did not follow markings	Nurse marked patient wrong
True	True	True	0.75
True	True	False	0.75
True	False	True	0.70
True	False	False	0.60
False	True	True	0.75
False	True	False	0.70
False	False	True	0.30
False	False	False	0.01

Using these estimates we can calculate the probability of wrong side surgeries when no information about any cause are present as 0.07 (see Figure 6 for an example analysis using Netica (TM) software available through Norsys).  Does this seem reasonable to the investigative team?  If the probability is higher by an order of magnitude from what the investigative team expected, then perhaps important constraints that prevent wrong side surgeries have been left out of the analysis.  If it is too low by an order of magnitude, then an important cause or mechanism by which wrong side surgeries occur might have been missed.  If it is in the ball park but not exactly what we expected, then perhaps the estimated probabilities might be wrong.  In any case, when there is no correspondence between the probability of the sentinel event and the investigative team's intuition, it is time to re-think the analysis and its parameters. 

Figure 6:  Application of Netica Software to Root Cause Analysis in Figure 5

Other probabilities can also be calculated and compared to the experts' intuitions.  Suppose on a particular unit in a particular day, we find the nurse was fatigued but the clinician was well trained and the patient provided accurate information.  Given the above estimates and the root cause in Figure 5, the probability of wrong side surgery on this day is calculated as: 0.03 (See Figure 7).  If this corresponds to the investigative team's expectation, then the analysis is consistent and we can proceed.  If not, we need to examine why not and look for adjustments that would fit the model predictions to experienced historical rates. 

Figure 7:  Probability of wrong side surgery when the patient has provided
correct information, the surgeon is well trained but there is over staffing

Reverse Predictions

The Bayesian network can also be used to calculate the probability of observing a cause given an effect has occurred.  This is the reverse of how most people think about causes and effects.  Most people start with a cause and want to predict the probability of the effect.  Bayesian probability models allow us to do the reverse.  One can start with known sentinel events and ask about the prevalence of a particular cause among them.  Since causes are not as rare as sentinel events, this procedure allows us to check on the adequacy of the analysis without having to wait a long time for reoccurrence of the sentinel event.  To make matters easier, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations publishes prevalence of categories of causes among sentential events.  These data can be used to examine the consistency of the Root Cause Analysis.  Large discrepancy between observed prevalence of causes among sentinel events and assumed prevalence of causes in the investigative team's model suggest errors in assignments of probabilities as well as possible missed cause or constraint.

Figure 8:  JCAHO's Report on Various Categories of Causes for Sentinel Events

There are a number of software systems that allow the calculation of reverse probabilities in a Root Cause Analysis.  Using Netica software we calculated the prevalence of over staffing in our model of wrong side surgeries.  We started by setting the probability of wrong side surgery to 100%.  Then we allowed the software to calculate the prevalence of over staffing.

Figure 9:  Prevalence of Over Staffing Among Wrong Side Surgeries

The software calculated that overstaffing is present in 44% of wrong side surgeries.  Is this a reasonable estimate?   In contrast, JCAHO reports staffing levels to be a cause of sentinel event less than 20% of the time (see Figure 8).  Obviously, there are many reasons for a health care organization to differ from other aggregate data reported by JCAHO.  But JCAHO's data can be used as a rough benchmark.  The two probabilities differ considerably.  These differences suggest the need to think again through the analysis.

Summary of Proposed Method for Root Cause analysis

Sentinel events can be reduced if health care organization create a blame-free environment, conduct Root Cause Analysis and take concrete actions on the basis of the analysis.  To conduct root cause analysis we propose the following steps:

1. Before a sentinel event occurs, an investigative team is organized.  The team should include a facilitator and a team leader.  The facilitator's responsibility is to organize tasks, serve as staff to the team, and conduct team meetings in an efficient and effective method.  The facilitator should be trained in probability models.  The leader's responsibility is to make sure that the investigation is carried out thoroughly and to provide content expertise. 
2. When a sentinel event is reported, the employees closest to the incident are asked to record facts (not accusations) about the event, including what happened, who was present, where did the event occur, when did it occur and what was the time sequence of the events that preceded the sentinel event.
3. The investigative team meets and brainstorms (1) potential causes for the incident, and (2) key constraints that if they were in place would have prevented the incident from occurring.  Two steps are taken to make sure the listing is comprehensive.  First, the framing bias is reduced by asking for a list of causes with alternative prompts.  Thus, since constraints can be thought of reverse causes, the team should be asked to list both the constraints and causes.  Furthermore, because the team is focused on conditions that led to the sentinel event, they should be asked to examine also conditions that prevented sentinel events in other occasions. 
4. The facilitator interviews the investigative team or uses existing data to assign a probability to each cause and a conditional probability for each effect. 
5. The facilitator checks the accuracy of the causal model and asks the investigative team to revise their model.  The following steps allows one to check the accuracy or consistency of the causal model:
   1. The facilitator uses the model to predict the probability of the sentinel event.  If this probability is several magnitudes higher than historical pattern or investigative team's intuitions, the facilitator seeks additional constraints that would reduce the probability of the sentinel event.  If the probability is lower than historical experience or the investigative team's intuitions, the team is asked to describe additional mechanisms and causes that may lead to the sentinel event.
   2. The facilitator uses the model to calculate the prevalence of the causes among sentinel events.  These data are checked against the investigative team's intuitions as well as against observed rates published by the JCAHO. 
   3. The facilitator checks that claimed root causes are conditionally independent from the sentinel event.  If a root cause is directly linked to the sentinel event, the investigative team is asked to redefine the direct cause to be specific to the mechanism used by the root cause to affect the sentinel event.  If few root causes have been specified, the investigative team is asked to think again through reasons why direct causes occur. 
   4. The facilitator checks the marginal probabilities against objective data.  If the probabilities do not match, the facilitator should use the objective probabilities whenever available.
6. Document the findings.  A chart is organized showing all the nodes and arcs.  The root causes, direct causes and sentinel events are shown in the chart.   Arrows are drawn from root causes to direct causes and from direct causes to sentinel events.    

Discussion

Investigative teams often rely on their own intuitions for listing the root causes of a sentinel event.  They rarely check the validity of their analysis.  In this paper, we have shown how Bayesian networks can be applied to root cause analysis to test the validity and/or consistency of the analysis.  Real analysis should be a careful examination of facts and not a cover for wishful speculation.  By creating a Bayesian Network and estimating the probabilities of various events, one can scrutinize assumptions made in root cause analysis.  In particular, one can check to see if important root causes have been missed, if the analysis is focused on root causes or direct causes, if frequency of sentinel event corresponds to expectations and experienced rates, if prevalence of causes of sentinel events correspond to known rates, and if assumptions of dependence or independence are wrong.  These are not exact ways of checking the accuracy of the analysis.  But these methods allow us to check the intuition of investigative teams and help them think through the implication of their analysis. 

Examples of Root Cause Analysis

• Investigation of eye splash and needle-stick incidents from an HIV-positive donor on an intensive care unit using root cause analysis.  PubMed►
• The Veterans Affairs root cause analysis system in action.  PubMed►
• Root cause analysis in perinatal care.  PubMed►
• Root-cause analysis of an airway filter occlusion.  PubMed►

What Do You Know?

1. When A causes B, B causes C, and there are no other causal relationships, what implication do these relationships have for the conditional probabilities?
2. What are the steps in conducting a root-cause analysis?
3. How can you validate the root-cause analysis? List specific ways that assumptions in root-cause analysis can be verified.
4. If a root-cause analysis of wrong-site surgery exceeds by several folds the observed frequency of wrong-site surgery, what implications does this have for the analysis?
5. What are serial, diverging, and converging structures, and which ones imply conditional independence?
6. What is meant by reverse prediction and why is that more useful than directly predicting a rare event?
7. In the root-cause analysis of wrong-site surgery, what is the probability of finding that the patient was responsible? If in the past you have reviewed 100 wrong-site surgeries and found that 5 percent of them were because of patient misinformation, what is the implication of this finding for the root cause analysis?

Bi-weekly Project

Advanced learners like you, often need different ways of understanding a topic. Reading is just one way of understanding. Another way is through writing. When you write you not only recall what you have written but also may need to make inferences about what you have read.

1. Interview a colleague at work to analyze root causes of an adverse outcome (not necessarily a sentinel event).  Make sure that you list at least 3 direct causes or constraints.  Make sure that you include the categories suggested by JCAHO for healthcare related projects, or categories known in the literature for other projects.  Draw a flow chart. 

2. Indicate what are the direct and root causes of the sentinel event.

3. Give an example question that can check the conditional independence assumption associated with root causes.  Make sure the question is not awkward

4. Verify all assumptions of conditional independence in your model by interacting with your expert.  Show what assumptions were checked and which assumptions were violated. 

5. Estimate marginal and conditional probabilities by interviewing your expert.

6. Use a software to estimate the probability of the sentinel event.

7. Use a software to calculate the probability of sentinel event under at least 3 different scenarios (combination of causes occurring or not occurring).

8. Ask your expert if the various estimates in questions 6 through 7 are within your expert's expectations.

9. Calculate the prevalence of root causes for the sentinel event in your analysis.  Compare these data to JCAHO's reports on prevalence of causes of sentinel events.  Report the difference between your model assumptions and the JCAHO's data.

10. Suggest how you would change the causal model to better accommodate your expert's insights.  Show how your root cause analysis changed as a consequence of the data you examined.

Submit narrated slieds to your instructor.  See examples of previous projects. Note that these are only examples and should not be used as templates for your project. There may be errors in these presentations! You must do everything yourself and examples are ONLY to show you how a project may look like.    Rape on campus►  Medication error►  Prescription errors►  Analysis of falls (in Arabic)► 

Slides and Narrated Slides

These audio/visual resources may be of further assistance to you in understanding this topic:

1. Listen to lecture on root cause analysis  Slides►  Listen► SWF►

2. See a video on how to set up a root cause model using Netica software.  Video►  Download►

3. See a video on how to analyze root cause model using Netica software.  Video►  Download►

Narrated slides and videos require Flash.  Download►

More

• Techniques for root cause analysis.  PubMed►
• Wald, and Shojania review the literature on root cause analysis PubMed► 
• Medline annotated bibliography on using Failure Mode Effect Analysis  PubMed► 
• Medline annotated bibliography on incidence reporting in health care PubMed►
• Examples of root cause analysis  PubMed►
• Joint commission's role in patient safety  More►
• Sample Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis for hypothetical medication use process in operating room More►
• Vincent, Charles. Patient Safety: Understanding and Responding to Adverse Events. New England Journal of Medicine. 348(11):1051-1056, March 13, 2003.  1051-1056, March 13, 2003. This article is an excellent overview of the field.  Library►
• Spath PL. Using failure mode and effects analysis to improve patient safety. AORN J. 2003 Jul; 78(1): 16-37.   Accession number:  00000703-200307000-00004.   (From the abstract) This article introduces the concept of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) or prospective risk analysis and its utility in evaluating system safety in order “to improve the safety of patient care activities.” “The steps of the FMEA process are described and applied to a high-risk perioperative process.”   Library► 
• Dunn D. Incident reports--correcting processes and reducing errors. AORN J. 2003 Aug;78(2):212, 214-6, 219-20.   Accession number:   00000703-200308000-00006  (From the abstract) “This article describes systems approaches to assessing the ways in which an organization operates and explains the types of failures that cause errors. The steps that guide managers in adapting an incident reporting system that incorporates continuous quality improvement are identified.”  Library► 
• Fischoff, B., Slovic, P. & Lichtenstein, S., (1978), "Fault Trees: Sensitivity of Estimated Failure Probabilities to Problem Representation." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 4, pp 330 - 334.  An article that shows how expert mechanics are influenced by the fault tree for why a car will not start up. 

Recently Asked Questions

Ask questions and we will try to answer it on this page.  Following are answers to recent questions asked: 

Question: How do you really classify a cause as a direct cause as opposed to an indirect cause? Can there be instances where an indirect cause can be an direct cause as well depending how one interprets the analysis?    Answer: Here lies the art of the analysis. A direct cause shows a mechanism that affects the target event in close physical proximity and with few steps, cigarettes are a direct cause of lung cancer because we see how smoke affects the lung. An indirect cause is something that does not have a physical link to the target event. Advertisement for cigarettes directed at children may be considered an indirect cause, as it affects the uptake of smoking but it does not affect the lung itself directly.     Asked on 7/11/2008 12:40:59 AM and answered on 7/11/2008 9:38:08 AM.

Question: When I try and use the Netica software, I set up the nodes correctly, however, when I try and enter the probabilities, it does not give me true and false, it just gives me and area to enter the number of trues, how do I get it set up so that it has the true and false columns?    Answer: Are you sure that you have selected nodes that are event nodes with uncertain outcomes. You have probably selected a different node.     Asked on 4/16/2008 11:05:48 PM and answered on 4/17/2008 12:58:31 PM.

Question: What is your advice in distinguishing the root causes from direct causes? Is there a situation where the root and direct cause are the same variable?    Answer: This is a really difficult question to answer. We have provided mathematical tests of root versus direct cause through conditional independence; but I am not sure that this is the whole picture. There is a lot more that meets the eye. I am not sure the field knows how to do this, except the obvious answer of repeatedly asking why.     Asked on 4/14/2008 8:48:26 PM and answered on 4/15/2008 11:56:09 PM.

Question: In the online survey, are we supposed to see the results of the information we provide? All I see is this as a response: Database Results Wizard Error The operation failed. If this continues, please contact your server administrator.    Answer: I am not sure where this error is occurring. I was not able to find an online survey on this page. Please give me a few more clues about the location of the online survey.    Asked on 4/13/2008 11:44:15 PM and answered on 4/14/2008 7:05:05 AM.

Question: You mentioned Netica Software for Root Cause Analysis. My questions are: 1. what is the most popular software for root cause analysis? 2. How much does it cost? 3. Is it used a lot in the healthcare industry. Thanks.    Answer: See earlier answer    Asked on 7/12/2006 12:17:28 PM and answered on 7/18/2006 4:35:57 AM.

Question: You mentioned Netica Software for Root Cause Anlaysis. My questions are: 1. what is the popular software root cause anlysis? 2.How much does it cost? 3.Is it used a lot in the healthcare industry. Thanks.    Answer: To date, there is no specific software that has been developed for root cause analysis that has the functionality we need (e.g. check of conditional independence). There is a book on failure mode analysis in health care that is sold with an accompanying software which is an add on to Excel.     Asked on 7/12/2006 12:14:54 PM and answered on 7/18/2006 4:35:37 AM.

Question: Dr Alemi, what would be a simple way to identify the direct cause from the root cause?    Answer: A direct cause often has a physical link to the event of interest. An indirect cause does not. Direct causes can be established by asking questions on what happened, when it happened and where it happened. An indirect cause is more likely to be a more systemic and removed from immediate events surrounding the adverse event.     Asked on 4/3/2006 12:47:21 AM and answered on 4/7/2006 1:34:54 PM.

Question: Do we really have to complete this survey as part of the assignments?    Answer: I am not sure what you are asking? Is this in relation to root cause analysis?    Asked on 10/15/2005 3:42:51 PM and answered on 10/17/2005 8:57:03 PM.

Question: The link to the JCAHO materials does not seem to be working.     Answer: Thanks I will look into it.    Asked on 7/19/2005 6:53:57 AM and answered on 7/19/2005 7:42:25 PM.

Question: Do we have to recognize the relationship between the root cause, direct cause, and incidence in the assignment?    Answer: Yes, it is important to do so. You can do so by checking the independence of ideas expressed in the causal flow chart    Asked on 4/17/2005 5:37:48 PM and answered on 4/21/2005 7:53:30 PM.

Question: Is there a limit to how many root causes there can be?    Answer: No and yes. There is no theoretical limit but experience with people shows that most people list at most 3-5 causes for a phenomena.     Asked on 4/7/2005 9:36:50 PM and answered on 4/8/2005 12:17:37 PM.

Question: Is there a stronger relationship between the root cause and the direct cause than the direct cause and the incident?    Answer: I have hypothesized that direct causes will have a stronger relationship with the target event than indirect (root) causes. We are actually collecting the data to see if that is the case.     Asked on 4/2/2005 11:01:53 PM and answered on 4/4/2005 10:32:39 PM.

Question: Just have to use this method more in order to be clear on the relationships of marginal and conditional probabilities on sentinel events.    Answer: Yes, practice makes perfect    Asked on 4/17/2004 10:07:37 PM and answered on 5/20/2004 7:37:09 PM.

Question: Will see after doing assignment    Answer: Yes, of course.    Asked on 3/30/2004 11:26:04 PM and answered on 3/31/2004 11:01:09 PM.

Question: Just need to do hands on. The lecture and Jee's demonstration using the computer software was excellent.    Answer: Yes of course    Asked on 3/30/2004 9:06:44 PM and answered on 8/27/2004 12:51:18 PM.

Question: Just need to do hands on. The lecture and Jee's demonstration using the computer software was excellent.    Answer: Yes you do need to do it yourself    Asked on 3/30/2004 9:06:22 PM and answered on 8/27/2004 12:51:10 PM.

Question: How to validate the the probabilistic root cause analysis?    Answer: You can valdiate the probabilistic root cause analysis by comparing its predictions or its assumptions to observed data. For example, you can see the prevalence of causes among sentinel events and compare this to JCAHO's reports.    Asked on 3/30/2004 9:04:41 PM and answered on 3/30/2004 10:54:58 PM.

Question: For now it seems that fair, I will see how well I can do the assignment.    Answer: Yes, I agree    Asked on 3/30/2004 9:04:32 PM and answered on 3/30/2004 10:52:58 PM.

Question: Truth, I get it when I am in class however, I don't get it later at home. The lectures have been interesting and understandable until I get home.    Answer: Perhaps we need to do more examples in class. We will do additional examples next time.    Asked on 3/30/2004 9:04:32 PM and answered on 3/30/2004 10:53:33 PM.

Question: I don't know until I actually attempt to apply this in the homework assignment    Answer: Yes, I agree    Asked on 3/30/2004 9:03:51 PM and answered on 3/30/2004 10:52:07 PM.

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