Organizational Systems and Quality Leadership Task 2-RCA and FMEA Jacqueline Spence Western Governors University

Root Cause Analysis Per the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a root cause analysis (RCA) is a systematic approach to understanding the causes of an adverse event and identifying system flaws that can be corrected to prevent the error from happening again. This means, when an event occurs that leads to harm of patients or staff members, a process is followed to figure out the what, how and why. An RCA is not intended to place blame on an employee but to help find ways to ensure the event does not occur again. Also, by performing an RCA, new policies/procedures are created as well as system updates for prevention. RCA Steps There are six steps in...