Methods for performing human reliability and error analysis in health care

This paper presents nine different methods and approaches useful for performing human reliability and error analysis in health care. These methods are failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA), root cause analysis (RCA), fault tree analysis (FTA), cause and effect diagram (CAED), hazard operability study (HAZOP), probability tree method, error cause removal program (ECRP), man-machine systems analysis (MMSA), and the Markov method. The applications of many methods are demonstrated through nine solved examples.