Snapshot An academic medical center had 15 cases of adenovirus infection amongst patients on the medicine floor over the course of 2 weeks. An investigative committee performs a root cause analysis to determine the cause of this outbreak in hopes to prevent future outbreaks from recurring. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Definition a problem solving method that focuses on finding the cause (the root) of a medical error in order to identify preventative measures which are subsequently implemented RCA attempts to answer what happened? why did it occur? how can we prevent this from occuring again? This technique is applied after the medical error occurs to prevent it from recurring Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Definition a technique used to evaluate risks in order to identify and eliminate known failures potential failures systemic, design, process, and service issues This technique is applied to prevent medical errors from occuring in the first place