TY - JOUR T1 - Root-cause analysis: swatting at mosquitoes versus draining the swamp JF - BMJ Quality & Safety JO - BMJ Qual Saf SP - 350 LP - 353 DO - 10.1136/bmjqs-2016-006229 VL - 26 IS - 5 AU - Patricia Trbovich AU - Kaveh G Shojania Y1 - 2017/05/01 UR - http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/26/5/350.abstract N2 - Many healthcare systems recommend root-cause analysis (RCA) as a key method for investigating critical incidents and developing recommendations for preventing future events. In practice, however, RCAs vary widely in terms of their conduct and the utility of the recommendations they produce.1 ,2 RCAs often fail to explore deep system problems that contributed to safety events3 due to the limited methods used, constrained time and meagre financial/human resources to conduct RCAs.4 Furthermore, healthcare organisations often lack the mandate and authority required to develop and implement sophisticated and effective corrective actions.4 Consequently, corrective actions primarily aim at changing human behaviour rather than system-based changes.5 ,6In this issue of BMJ Quality and Safety, Kellogg et al7 confirm these concerns about RCAs. Reviewing 302 RCAs conducted over an 8-year period at a US academic medical centre, the authors report the most common solution types as training, process change and policy reinforcement. Serious events (eg, retained surgical sponges) recurred repeatedly despite conducting RCAs. These findings highlight the long overdue need to enhance the effectiveness of RCAs.James Reason (of the Swiss Cheese Model8) once characterised the goal of error investigations as draining the swamp not swatting mosquitoes.8 Critical incidents arise from the interplay between active failures (eg, not double checking for allergies before administering a medication) and latent conditions9 (eg, workload for the nurse and reliance on human memory for a critical safeguard when electronic systems with built-in reminders exist). Returning to Reason's analogy, we do not want to spend our time and expend our resources swatting at the mosquitoes of ‘not double checking’. Rather, we want to drain the swamp of the many latent conditions that make not double checking more likely to occur. Too often, RCA teams focus on the … ER -