Towards a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Framework: Assessing Suitability of Human Reliability Analysis Methods for Surgery (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Human reliability analysis (HRA) is regarded as an indispensable step in significantly enhancing the quality and safety of surgery. Nevertheless, HRA techniques are severely constrained and no formal HRA method for surgery has been published. OBJECTIVE This study established a multicriteria decision-making framework to support the selection of HRA techniques in the surgical sector. METHODS The framework integrates triangular fuzzy numbers, CRITIC, and VIKOR methods to quantitatively address complex decision problems with conflicting criteria and uncertainty of subjective judgments in the assessment process. RESULTS results of the case study suggest that the preferred option is METHOD 0, followed by SPAR-H, SLIM, and THERP. The case study suggests that in actual medical risk assessment, a more practical choice is to use SPAR-H to identify critical surgical tasks which may be potential significant risks, then conduct an in-depth analysis using THERP’s detailed event tree. CONCLUSIONS The This study lays the groundwork for a practical framework to assist surgery safety managers in selecting appropriate HRA techniques.