Free Failure Modes And Effects Analysis Research Paper Sample

Introduction

The increasing demand for quality and reliability by consumers is one of the major concerns among manufactures, service providers and producers. Nursing is one of the most sensitive professions that demands for quality and reliability in the provision of health care. As such, the safety of patients is a key aspect in health care whereby health care providers aim at eliminating or reducing medical errors. Thus, “failure modes and effects analysis” (FMEA) is a useful tool that is used by health care providers as well as by other service providers to increase the reliability and quality of their services and products (Freitag and Carroll, 2011).
FMEA is a practical and systematic procedure that is used to evaluate the failures that may occur in a process or design and assess the impacts of the potential failures during the production of a service or product. On the other hand, the procedure is carried out in all the production or developmental stages of a service or product to identify the stages that require changes so as to improve on the quality and reliability of a service or product (Duwe and Hansen-Flaschen, 2005). For instance, in health care the procedure is carried out to examine the potential failures that may occur in the delivery of health care and prevent them from happening by making corrections on the process rather than deal with the outcomes of the failure. As such, FMEA enables health care providers to provide quality health care to patients by minimizing or eliminating the risks and harms associated with the identified failures (Spath, 2003). Furthermore, FMEA is one of the most useful tools used to analyze a new process before the implementation process to determine the effectiveness of the new process as compared to those that are in existence.
Therefore, FMEA is an important tool in health care that helps to minimize or eliminate the risks of potential medical errors and improve the quality of health care as well as the safety of patients.

References

Duwe, B., Fuchs, B. D., & Hansen-Flaschen, J. (2005). Failure mode and effects analysis application to critical care medicine. Critical care clinics, 21(1), 21-30.
Freitag, M., & Carroll, V. S. (2011). Handoff communication: using failure modes and effects analysis to improve the transition in care process. Quality Management in Healthcare, 20(2), 103-109.
Spath, P. L. (2003). Using failure mode and effects analysis to improve patient safety. AORN journal, 78(1), 15-37.