A hospital is considering changing the process of admissions from the emergency department.

To support patient safety when deploying a new admissions process from the emergency department, the healthcare quality professional should suggest completing a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) during the design stage. FMEA is a proactive tool used to identify potential failure points in a process and assess their impact on patient safety. By analyzing the process before it is implemented, the organization can anticipate and mitigate risks, ensuring a safer rollout of the new process.

Examining the new process for stability and variation using a control chart (A): This is typically done after implementation to monitor ongoing performance, not during the design stage.

Conducting a root cause analysis (C): Root cause analysis is reactive and used after an error has occurred, making it unsuitable for proactive safety planning.

Analyzing incident reports using a Pareto chart (D): This is useful for identifying common causes of past issues but does not directly contribute to the safety design of a new process.

References

NAHQ Body of Knowledge: Risk Management and FMEA

NAHQ CPHQ Exam Preparation Materials:Proactive Safety Design and FMEA