SSA can help to reduce risk and improve quality by getting people together and giving them the ‘head-space’ to think through potential problems using a systematic process.
The first step to working out ‘what could go wrong’ is to describe the system. This might be in the form of a set of procedures, known risks or incidents, but often involves some process mapping, typically using flow charts or other types of diagram. The description forms the basis for thinking about what could go wrong in a careful and systematic way.
Once it is known what could go wrong it is necessary to think about how likely this is and how bad it would be if it did go wrong - the risks.
If any of these risks are too big, the next step is to consider how to reduce them. The SSA process helps to develop a range of actions, and then to choose the best ones by considering attributes such as their effectiveness, costs and ease of implementation, and how the effectiveness will be measured.
All of this is done in a proactive and systematic way, across the system that is being looked at. It also requires the knowledge of system experts - usually anyone who has had experience of the system or a similar one. More detail about how the SSA works is given in the Guide section of this website.