Development of a Risk Management Tool for Healthcare Providers

Risk management is one of the areas in healthcare providers with higher growth, integrating the analysis, evaluation and decision-making for equipment or processes that can integrate risks for people, business or environment. This is an area with great importance and major impact on the performance, quality and safety. The correct management of the physical assets assures greater safety for users and professionals, as well as the higher efficiency of equipment, always with controlled risks. The present study proposes a methodology that intends to respond to safety requirements for healthcare providers concerning risk management, regarding medical equipment and medical devices, with direct or indirect contact with patients and healthcare professionals. The proposed methodology analyzes the potential failure modes of each medical device that exist in a healthcare provider, as well as its causes and effects, aiming to classify the failure modes. After that it is also proposed a graphical representation clearly showing the risk associated to each equipment or medical device and each plant compartment using the risk mapping technique. As greater the risk the more attention should be paid to those medical devices. To demonstrate the methodology proposed, it was applied in a practical case study of a healthcare provider showing the potential of the proposal in this field.