Tip of the week: During a root cause analysis, choose your words carefully

The quality improvement or quality assurance department within a hospital typically organizes and oversees root cause analyses (RCA), but the medical staff plays an important role as well. During RCAs, it’s important to uphold a blame-free environment so the RCA team can pinpoint exactly what caused the medical error or near miss. One way to do that is to watch your language. Use phrases such as “involved in the process of the event,” instead of “responsible for the event,” and focus on how the event occurred, not who caused it. It is also important to let the healthcare team that was involved in the process of the event know that no one believes that they got up in the morning and went into work intending to cause harm; rather, the RCA is meant to help everyone do a better job.

This week’s tip is adapted from “Creating a blame-free environment to ensure accurate RCAS: Why the medical staff’s actions make a difference” in the March issue ofCredentialing & Peer Review Legal Insider.