Integrating DMAIC Philosophy and Bow-Tie Model for Quantitative Risk Assessment in Health Care.

Background and objectives: Medical risks are considered to endanger patients and impact the health care system. Such iatrogenic risks necessitate hospitals taking a more proactive method to quantitatively analyze medical risk, and then to implement more targeted precautions. To address this problem, a novel quantitative risk assessment framework is proposed and further applied in radiotherapy risk assessment.

Methods: A framework combining DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and bow-tie model is used to assess health care risk. The uncertainty of medical risks is quantified with fuzzy set theory. The impact and the priority of medical risks were classified based on the risk matrix, and then the precautions were implemented to mitigate their impact. A case study of radiation treatment is provided.

Results: The probabilities and impacts of risk events for radiation treatment were quantified based on the proposed framework, and risk protection measures were proposed to mitigate the undesired consequence.

Conclusion: The proposed framework showing an effective method of quantitative risk assessment of health care. The study also enriches the risk assessment methods in health care by providing a conductive and normalized framework.