Mr. B RCA and FMEA guide: rural ED sentinel event
A root cause analysis of the Mr. B sentinel event, a process improvement plan, and an FMEA applied to that plan. This guide covers why the scenario's closing paragraph rules out individual blame, why the FMEA belongs to part B and not to the event, and how the detection score actually works.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 6, 2026
What the scenario's last paragraph is telling you
Read the paragraph headed additional information before you read anything else, because it is the scenario telling you what kind of answer it wants. The hospital had a moderate sedation policy requiring continuous blood pressure, ECG and pulse oximetry until discharge criteria were met. Backup staff was available. Nurse J had completed the sedation training module, held current ACLS, was an experienced critical care nurse, had been rated as meeting requirements, and had no history of negligent care. Equipment was sufficient and working. Every one of those sentences closes off an individual-blame explanation, deliberately. A root cause analysis that concludes Nurse J failed to monitor the patient has been refuted in advance by the case it is analysing, which is the single most common way this task is failed. Read those seven facts as the list of explanations you are not permitted to reach for.
The two frameworks point in opposite directions in time, and confusing them costs a whole section. A root cause analysis is retrospective: it asks why this event happened. A failure modes and effects analysis is prospective: it asks what could go wrong with a process that does not exist yet. The task is explicit about this — the FMEA table is to be applied to the process improvement plan you proposed in part B, not to the original event. Running an FMEA on Mr. B's death is analysing the past twice and leaving the future unexamined, and it is visible immediately to anyone marking against the rubric. Write part B before you touch part C, and the sequencing takes care of itself. It also makes part B better, because a plan written to be analysed gets specified more carefully than one written to be described.
Root cause analysis | Failure modes and effects analysis | |
|---|---|---|
Direction | Backwards, at what happened | Forwards, at what could |
Applies to | The sentinel event | Your improvement plan from part B |
Output | Causative and contributing factors | Failure modes scored and ranked |
Scoring | None | Severity x occurrence x detection |
Common error | Naming a person as the cause | Running it on the original event |
Both frameworks have to be described as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement defines them, which the task says twice. That rules out a generic description assembled from memory. For the FMEA, the numbers matter: each failure mode is scored for severity, likelihood of occurrence and likelihood of detection, and the risk priority number is those three multiplied together. Detection is the one people misread — a high score means the failure is unlikely to be caught, so it raises the risk rather than lowering it. That maps directly onto the scenario, where the oxygen saturation alarm sounded and was reset without assessment: the detection mechanism existed and did not function as detection. Note that you are told explicitly not to carry out the full analysis. Rank the failure modes you score and say which you would address first, since a risk priority number that is never used to prioritise anything is arithmetic rather than analysis.
The causative and contributing factors are in the timeline if you read it as a system rather than as a sequence of choices. The policy required continuous ECG and continuous pulse oximetry; Mr. B had a blood pressure cuff on a five-minute cycle and a pulse oximeter, and his ECG and respirations were not monitored at all. Between the sedation and the arrest, a two-nurse department absorbed an incoming respiratory-distress patient by ambulance, discharged two others, and filled its lobby. The staffing model made the policy unachievable, and an alarm was silenced by the only person free to answer it. Those are system factors, and each one suggests a different countermeasure — which is what part B is for. Group them before you write: monitoring, staffing, alarm response, and policy enforcement each produce a different fix, and a plan that names all four is stronger than one that names a root cause in the singular.
Two smaller requirements are worth planning for rather than discovering late. Lewin's change theory has to be applied phase by phase to your own improvement plan, which means three labelled passages — unfreezing, changing, refreezing — each naming something concrete you would do, not a definition of the phase followed by a sentence about staff buy-in. And part E asks how a professional nurse demonstrates leadership across three named areas, then asks separately how involvement in the RCA and FMEA processes demonstrates leadership. Those are four answers, not one. Give each of the three areas its own short paragraph and the fourth its own, and the rubric aspects line up with your headings. Doing that also stops part E collapsing into general praise of nursing, which is what happens when the three areas are answered together in one paragraph.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Read a scenario for the system factors it documents rather than the decisions it narrates.
- 02Distinguish a retrospective analysis from a prospective one and apply each to the right object.
- 03Score failure modes on severity, occurrence and detection, and interpret the detection scale correctly.
- 04Apply a change theory phase by phase to a specific plan rather than describing the theory.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Everything parts A to G require
- 01The general purpose of a root cause analysis, and each of the six steps as defined by IHI.
- 02The RCA applied to the scenario, giving causative and contributing factors.
- 03A process improvement plan that would reduce the likelihood of recurrence.
- 04Each phase of Lewin's change theory applied to that plan.
- 05The general purpose of FMEA and its steps as defined by IHI.
- 06The FMEA table completed against the part B plan using severity, occurrence and detection scales.
- 07An explanation of how you would test the interventions.
- 08Nursing leadership in promoting quality care, improving patient outcomes and influencing quality improvement, plus how RCA and FMEA involvement demonstrates it.
- 09In-text citations and references for all quoted, paraphrased or summarised content.
Working parts A to E in the order the task assumes
A. The purpose of RCA and its six steps
Explain what an RCA is for and set out the six IHI steps.
A1. The RCA applied to Mr. B
Identify causative and contributing factors from the timeline and the policy.
B. The process improvement plan
Propose specific changes that would make the sedation policy achievable.
B1. Lewin, phase by phase
Apply unfreezing, changing and refreezing to your plan specifically.
C. FMEA on the plan
Explain the process, then score the plan's failure modes on the three scales.
D and E. Testing, and nursing leadership
Describe how you would test the interventions, then answer the four leadership prompts.
Where IHI defines the steps the task asks for
Recommended databases
- Institute for Healthcare Improvement
- The Joint Commission
- AHRQ Patient Safety Network
- CINAHL
- MEDLINE / PubMed
Search sequence
- 1.Take the RCA and FMEA step definitions from IHI directly, because the task names IHI as the source for both.
- 2.Read the sentinel event definition from the accreditor rather than a textbook, so part A's framing is precise.
- 3.Find a peer-reviewed application of Lewin's model in a clinical setting, so part B1 has a worked precedent.
- 4.Look for published analyses of alarm response and monitoring failures, which is where this scenario's factors sit.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Tool
Institute for Healthcare Improvement · 2026
The tool the task names, with the risk priority number defined as severity times occurrence times detection, each scored one to ten. Note that a ten on detection means very unlikely to detect.
- 02
Quality Improvement Essentials Toolkit
Institute for Healthcare Improvement · 2026
Nine improvement tools with instructions, an example and a template each. Use it for the process descriptions the task asks to be attributed to IHI, and for the testing method in part D.
- 03
Sentinel Event Policy and Procedures
The Joint Commission · 2026
Defines the sentinel event and the comprehensive systematic analysis expected in response, whose stated purpose is to look past the individual to the system breakdowns. That is the framing part A needs.
- 04
Sentinel Event
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf, US National Library of Medicine · 2023
A concise reference account of sentinel events and the analysis that follows them, useful for the general-purpose explanations in parts A and C without leaning entirely on one source.
- 05
Nurse staffing and inpatient hospital mortality
New England Journal of Medicine, via PubMed · 2011
Evidence that exposure to below-target staffing carries excess mortality. It supports the contributing-factor argument that a two-nurse department absorbing an ambulance arrival is a system condition, not a lapse.
Before the submission goes up
Common mistakes
- Concluding that Nurse J caused the outcome, which the scenario's final paragraph pre-empts point by point.
- Running the FMEA on the original event instead of on the part B improvement plan.
- Describing RCA and FMEA generically when the task specifies the IHI definitions twice.
- Reading a high detection score as good — it means the failure is unlikely to be caught.
- Describing Lewin's phases rather than applying each one to your own plan.
- Treating part E as one question when it names three leadership areas plus a fourth on RCA and FMEA involvement.
- Missing that the sedation policy required continuous ECG, which was never in place.
- Attempting a full FMEA when the task says explicitly that you are not expected to.
Submission checklist
- The six RCA steps are attributed to IHI and match its definitions.
- Causative and contributing factors are system-level and traceable to the timeline.
- The improvement plan exists before the FMEA references it.
- The FMEA table scores the plan's failure modes, not the original event.
- Severity, occurrence and detection are each scored, and the detection scale is used correctly.
- Lewin's three phases each name a concrete action from your plan.
- Part E has four distinct answers.
- A method for testing the interventions is described.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.

Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.

Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.