A system safety approach to assessing risks in the sepsis treatment process

Abstract

In healthcare, most accidents occur as a result of inadequate interactions between system components rather than component failures. In such cases traditional risk analysis methods are of limited use for analysing system safety, so methods such as Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) and the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) have been developed. This study uses STPA to assess risks in the sepsis treatment process, discusses the potential value STPA adds and compares the results of STPA with the results of another study that used FRAM. The findings indicate that STPA and FRAM have different strengths which reflect the different scientific approaches behind these two methods. FRAM facilitates an in-depth understanding of a system, while STPA allows for more comprehensive risk analysis by identifying more risks, scenarios and safety recommendations. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to say that not only does STPA provide more comprehensive risk analysis; its terminology and philosophy are also closer to the current safety management applications employed in complex systems.