System Safety in Healthcare: White House Wants System Engineering for Safety and Reliability in Health Care

Dev Raheja

doi:10.56094/jss.v52i1.134

Authors

Dev Raheja

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56094/jss.v52i1.134

Keywords:

system safety, healthcare, PCAST, White House, health data, reliability analysis

Abstract

System safety engineering will be a great tool for designing health care systems for patient safety, but the White House has a wider goal — one that includes not only patient safety, but also reliability, efficiency, productivity, quality and cost reduction. Therefore, systems engineering is poised to become the next proactive tool in health care.

A report, titled “Report To The President, Better Health Care And Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement Through Systems Engineering,” was prepared by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in May 2014 [Ref. 1]. The report highlights systems engineering, widely used in manufacturing and aviation, as an interdisciplinary approach to analyze, design, manage and measure a complex system. It also points out that, in spite of excellent examples, systems methods and tools are not yet used on a widespread basis in U.S. health care.

Author Biography

Dev Raheja

Mr. Dev Raheja has been a System Safety and System Reliability Engineering consultant for over 25 years. His range of consulting encompasses transportation systems, electric power systems, high tech industry, aerospace, defense systems, medical systems, and consumer products. He has conducted training in several countries including Sweden, Australia, Japan, UK, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Brazil, South Africa, and Canada. He has done training and consulting work with NASA, U.S. Army, GM, Boeing, Eaton, Nissan Aerospace, Litton, General Dynamics, ITT, BAE Systems, Lockheed-Martin, Harley-Davidson, and United Technologies.

Prior to consulting, Mr. Raheja worked at General Electric, Cooper Industries, and at Booz-Allen & Hamilton. He is the author of several books including Assurance Technologies Principles and Practices (Second Edition, Wiley 2006), and Design for Reliability (Wiley, 2012). A Fellow of the System Safety Society, he has a received Scientific Achievement Award and the Educator-of the-Year Award from the society.

Mr. Raheja serves on the Patient and Families Advisory Council at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a patient safety advocate. He is Associate Editor for Healthcare Safety for The Journal of System Safety and an Associate Professor at University of Maryland where he teaches the “Design For Reliability” course which includes design for safety and trustworthiness.