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Use of a Mock Root Cause Analysis for Teaching Patient Safety to Third Year Medical Students

Objectives: To develop, implement, and evaluate a simulation in patient safety using root cause analyses (RCA) during a 16 week longitudinal third year OB-GYN/Pediatrics Clerkship.

Study Design: Subjects for the study were all third year medical students at the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine enrolled in the OB-Pediatrics Clerkship. Prior to the exercise, students received instructions and were asked to identify root causes in a de-identified timeline .Their answers were collected as a pre-test. The percent of the actual root causes the student identified was used as his/her score. Students then engaged in a mock RCA. As a post test, students identified root causes in a second timeline. Data were analyzed using SAS 9.3 software (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, North Carolina). The difference between the pre-test score (percent identified) and the post-test score (percent identified) was calculated for each student, and a paired t-test was conducted. The result was considered to be statistically significant if the P value was ≤0.05.

Results: Pre- and post-test scores were available for 45 students. The average pre-test score, average post-test score, and average difference in scores were 26.0, 56.7, and 30.6, respectively. The P value was <0.0001.

Conclusion: The Mock RCA increased student knowledge, and is an effective educational tool for introducing patient safety to medical students.

Topics: 2014, Faculty, Clerkship Director, Clerkship Coordinator, Osteopathic Faculty, Systems-Based Practice & Improvement, UME, Simulation, Quality & Safety,