Quality Assurance and Improvement Flashcards
7 cards from real FANZCA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Quality Assurance and Improvement flashcards as text
In anaesthesia quality assurance, 'failure mode and effects analysis' (FMEA) is BEST described as:
Answer: A prospective systematic method to identify potential failure points in a process before harm occurs
FMEA is a prospective risk assessment tool that systematically identifies potential failure modes in a process, their effects, and their likelihood before adverse events occur.
The concept of 'high reliability organization' (HRO) is relevant to anaesthesia quality. Which characteristic is MOST associated with HROs?
Answer: Maintaining a chronic sense of unease, deferring to expertise, and being reluctant to simplify
HROs are characterized by preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise.
When reporting anaesthetic adverse events using the Australian Incident Monitoring Study (AIMS) taxonomy, 'contributing factors' are distinguished from 'causes' because:
Answer: Contributing factors increase the likelihood or severity of an adverse event without being its direct cause
Contributing factors increase the probability or severity of an adverse event but are not its direct cause; identifying them helps design more comprehensive system improvements.
A department notices that patients having emergency cases at night have higher rates of postoperative complications. Using quality improvement principles, which is the MOST appropriate first step?
Answer: Collect and stratify data to determine whether the association is real and identify specific contributing factors
Before implementing changes, QI methodology requires data collection and stratification to confirm the association, quantify it, and identify specific contributing factors.
In the context of informed consent quality improvement, which outcome measure would BEST evaluate whether consent processes are truly patient-centered?
Answer: Patient-reported understanding of risks and alternatives after consent consultation
Patient-centered consent quality is best measured by patients' reported understanding of risks and alternatives, reflecting the true purpose of the consent process.
Which of the following BEST describes the role of clinical indicators in anaesthesia quality programs?
Answer: They serve as flags to trigger further investigation and are not in themselves measures of quality
Clinical indicators are flags or triggers for further investigation; an outlying indicator suggests a potential problem warranting review but does not in itself confirm poor quality.
The 'Swiss cheese model' of accident causation, applied to anaesthesia safety, suggests that adverse events occur when:
Answer: Multiple layers of defenses each have gaps, and these gaps align to allow a hazard to reach the patient
The Swiss cheese model proposes that each defense layer has potential gaps (holes), and adverse events occur when holes in multiple layers align simultaneously to allow a hazard through.