Patient Safety and the USVA

One of my favorite sites for the management of patient safety issues is the US Veterans Administration. There are a lot of educational materials and tools that I believe can be adapted to addressing patient safety issues associated with eHealth. I especially like the Patient Safety Assessment Tool, an Excel spreadsheet questionnaire that addresses many of the controls that should be in place when dealing with patient safety and the Healthcare Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (HFMEA) which is a five step process to conduct a prospective patient safety risk analysis. The five steps in the HFMEA are:

• Step 1 - Define the Health Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Topic
• Step 2 - Assemble the Team
• Step 3 - Graphically Describe the Process
• Step 4 - Conduct a Hazard Analysis
• Step 5 - Actions and Outcome Measures
  

An excellent resource worth spending a little time on.