Title : FMEA on Telemedicine clinic
Abstract:
Background: Telemedicine is the use of digital information and communication technologies, such as Telephone conversation in the clinic to access health care services remotely and manage health care of patients. Heart Hospital was operating 14 clinics as Telemedicine clinics in 2020 and 15 clinics 2021. All clinics are operated at 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. All clinics are operated virtually except Anticoagulant & Warfarin clinics which are remained face to face consultation clinics. This study aimed to enhance the quality of telemedicine services by reducing errors and creating a safe user environment for Heart Hospital adults patient population. Failure mode and effects analysis tool (FMEA) was adopted to manage potential risks for sustainable digital transformation.
Objectives: FMEA tool is used to help identify failure modes and causes and assign appropriate risk scores. FMEA provides safer environment for patients, families, visitors and employees.
Methods: An eight-member multidisciplinary team conducted telemedicine FMEA to determine risk priority numbers (RPNs). The process included identifying the potential cause and effect failure mode of each step; measuring severity, probability, and detectability scores for RPNs; and generating strategies to decrease potential failures.
Results: This study identified 35 risk factors and 45 causes in seven major phases with a mean RPN of 83. This study used the FMEA results to develop improvement strategies for telemedicine services. It describes the actions suggested by the failure modes ranked on the RPN. Based on this, this study proposed an action plan for the implementation of telemedicine for Heart Hospital adults population patients.
Conclusion: To correct these failure modes, action plan is set out to be implemented by responsible assigned persons within the Heart Hospital. FMEA identifies and evaluates the potential risks of telemedicine services. The selected priorities reduce the clinical risks of Heart Hospital adults population patients who use telemedicine services by weighting clinical actions.
