BACKGROUND Until recently, the preparation of paediatric parenteral nutrition formulations in our institution included re-transcription and manual compounding of the mixture. Although no significant clinical problems have occurred, re-engineering of this high risk activity was undertaken to improve its safety. Several changes have been implemented including new prescription software, direct rec...

Among many types of medical equipment, ultrasound diagnostic systems are widely used because of their convenience and safety. Performing an ultrasound examination involves good eye-hand coordination and the ability to integrate the acquired information over time and space. Some of these specialized skills may lack in some healthcare centers or for emergency situations. Tele-consultation is ther...

In industries, Preventive Maintenance (PM) is not a new practice to minimise the sudden breakdown of production machine. PM will be performed at predetermine intervals to provide a balance between failure cost and component utilisation (aging). However, most of PM interval is based on experience or original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations. Consequently, the benefits from PM are not...

This paper presents an original method for risk assessment in water treatment, based on belief functions. The risk of producing non-compliant drinking water (i.e., such that one of the quality parameter exceeds the regulation standards), is estimated taking into account the quality parameters of raw water and the process line of the treatment plant (technology, different failure modes and corre...

Reducing the number of roof fall injuries is a goal of the NIOSH mine safety research program. Central to this effort is the development of assessment techniques to help identify the nature of the risks associated with working under potentially hazardous roof conditions. This paper discusses a method to determine the roof fall risk using a qualitative risk-analysis technique. The ability to det...

The value of characterising systems in high-risk industries as complex and socio-technical systems is increasing. Using complex and socio-technical system view-points, high profile industrial and transport accidents can be investigated by focusing attention to interactions between skilled operators, technology, and automation in geographically dispersed operations, as well as unintended design ...