Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to enhance the safety and efficiency of Gamma Knife radiosurgery.

This risk analysis describes our Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery at our community hospital. During bi-monthly meetings over 5 months, our FMEA team mapped a detailed Gamma Knife process tree and identified potential failure modes, each were scored a Risk Priority Number (RPN) for severity, occurrence, detectability. In our process tree of 14 subprocesses and 177 steps, we identified 31 potential failure modes: 7 high scoring (RPN o150) and 3 modes (<150) selected by clinicians for mitigation strategies.