Root Cause Analysis for Incident Reporting Cases of Radiological Technologists Based on Years of Experience

Abstract

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of reported incident reports can lead to measures to prevent the recurrence of accidents. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between the occurrence of cases, causal factors, contributing factors, and the experience years of the reporters classified into three groups: less than 2 years, 3 to less than 5 years, and more than 5 years, for incident reports subject to RCA. From April 2018 to March 2023, a chi-square test was conducted between each item extracted from 239 cases subject to RCA and the experience years of the reporters, with a significance level of less than 5% considered significant. Regarding the occurrence cases, radiological technologists with longer experience had more misidentified a patient and fewer errors in imaging conditions and range, while radiological technologists with 3 to less than 5 years of experience had more errors in imaging conditions (p<0.001). In terms of occurrence factors, radiological technologists with 3 to less than 5 years of experience had more cases of insufficient confirmation (p<0.05). For contributing factors, there was no significant difference between the experience year groups (p=0.19), with "Impatience" being the most common factor. This survey suggested that in incident reports of radiological technologists, "Impatience" is a contributing factor that can occur regardless of years of experience.