Utility of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis to Improve Safety in Suctioning by Orotracheal Tube

Objective: The objective of the study was to use the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) tool to analyze the technique of secretion suctioning on patients with an endotracheal tube who were admitted into an intensive care unit. Materials and Methods: Brainstorming was carried out within the service to determine the potential errors most frequent in the process. After this, the FMEA was applied, including its stages, prioritizing risk in accordance with the risk prioritization number (RPN), selecting improvement actions in which they have an RPN of more than 300. Results: We obtained 32 failure modes, of which 13 surpassed an RPN of 300. After our result, 21 improvement actions were proposed for those failure modes with RPN scores above 300. Conclusions: FMEA allows us to ascertain possible failures so as to later propose improvement actions for those which have an RPN of more than 300.