AEM Risk Assessment and Criteria for Adoption - Part 2

After you have completed your Alternate Equipment Maintenance (AEM) selection process, the next step is to create an AEM risk assessment procedure. The AEM risk assessment that my organization is considering is based on some innovative and exciting models that were shared with consideration to suggestions made by Matt Baretich, HTM consultant and guru. Risk Assessment is derived by establishing a severity of consequences multiplied by probability of harm to the patient.  The resulting score establishes the overall risk. A criteria for adoption takes the overall risk score and establishes a level of approval to adopt an AEM.

• Severity Level - Define and score the severity of failure.  In Figure 1, there is an example of the factors, score definitions, and rationale

• Probability Level - Define and score the probability of failure.  In Figure 2, there is an example of the factors, score definitions, and rationale
• Mean Time Between Harm (MTBH) = (# of devices X years of history) / All scheduled maintenance related failures
• Annual Harm Rate = MTBH/1 as expressed as a %

• Risk – The resulting scores from severity and probability are multiplied to establish an overall risk score.  Definitions and review approval are defined in Figure 3.
• Criteria for adoption starts with escalation of approval levels as appropriate for your organization.  I believe that you should highly consider Low risk items and be very cautious on adopting Medium and High-risk equipment.

When you decide which items to consider first, I would use the following in your considerations:

• Eliminate imaging, lasers, and items without sufficient history 
• Impact of change to Scheduled Maintenance work load
• Feedback from your employees -- the technicians do the work.  Make sure you listen to them.