• Annamaria Bagnasco, Barbara Tubino, Emanuela Piccotti, Francesca Rosa, Giuseppe Aleo, Pasquale Di Pietro, Loredana Sasso, Laura Gambino, Donatella Passalacqua, and Emergency and Urgency Department of the IRCCS Giannina Gaslini.
• Health Sciences Department, University of Genoa, Via Pastore 1, 16132 Genova, Italy. Annamaria.bagnasco@unige.it
• Int Emerg Nurs. 2013 Jul 1;21(3):168-72.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to identify effective corrective measures to ensure patient safety in the Paediatric Emergency Department (ED).MethodsIn order to outline a clear picture of these risks, we conducted a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and a Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), at a Emergency Department of a Children's Teaching Hospital in Northern Italy. The Error Modes were categorised according to Vincent's Taxonomy of Causal Factors and correlated with the Risk Priority Number (RPN) to determine the priority criteria for the implementation of corrective actions.ResultsThe analysis of the process and outlining the risks allowed to identify 22 possible failures of the process. We came up with a mean RPN of 182, and values >100 were considered to have a high impact and therefore entailed a corrective action.ConclusionsMapping the process allowed to identify risks linked to health professionals' non-technical skills. In particular, we found that the most dangerous Failure Modes for their frequency and harmfulness were those related to communication among health professionals.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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