TY - JOUR T1 - Assessing patient safety risk before the injury occurs: an introduction to sociotechnical probabilistic risk modelling in health care JF - Quality and Safety in Health Care JO - Qual Saf Health Care SP - ii33 LP - ii38 DO - 10.1136/qhc.12.suppl_2.ii33 VL - 12 IS - suppl 2 AU - D A Marx AU - A D Slonim Y1 - 2003/12/01 UR - http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/12/suppl_2/ii33.abstract N2 - Since 1 July 2001 the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has required each accredited hospital to conduct at least one proactive risk assessment annually. Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) was recommended as one tool for conducting this task. This paper examines the limitations of FMEA and introduces a second tool used by the aviation and nuclear industries to examine low frequency, high impact events in complex systems. The adapted tool, known as sociotechnical probabilistic risk assessment (ST-PRA), provides an alternative for proactively identifying, prioritizing, and mitigating patient safety risk. The uniqueness of ST-PRA is its ability to model combinations of equipment failures, human error, at risk behavioral norms, and recovery opportunities through the use of fault trees. While ST-PRA is a complex, high end risk modelling tool, it provides an opportunity to visualize system risk in a manner that is not possible through FMEA. ER -