Which tool helps identify causes for near-miss and adverse events?

• A. Failure mode effects analysis (FMEA)
• B. Root cause analysis (RCA)
• C. Plan-do-study-act (PDSA)
• D. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE)

Answer: (A)

Proactively analyzing how a process could fail and cause harm is what Failure Mode Effects Analysis is all about. It walks through each step, identifies potential failure modes, and explores their causes and effects. By rating risk—considering how severe the impact could be, how likely the failure is, and how detectable it would be—the team can prioritize preventive actions to reduce or eliminate those failure modes. This is particularly useful for near-misses and adverse events because it lets you anticipate problems before they happen and put safeguards in place. Root cause analysis is used after an event to find out why it happened, Plan-Do-Study-Act focuses on testing changes, and CPOE is a technology for electronic ordering, not an analysis method.