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Retrospective analysis

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This kind of analysis looks back in time to see what happened. The structured approach should enable you to find underlying causes.

TPSC Investigate brochure

PDF (English, 799KB)

Basically, analyses fall into 2 categories:
retrospective (in hindsight) and prospective (predictable).

What is a retrospective analysis?

To put simply, this kind of analysis looks back in time to see what happened. The structured approach should enable you to find underlying causes. Retrospective methods include, but are not limited to Root Cause Analyses (RCA), SIRE or PRISMA based methods.

When do you conduct a retroprospective analysis?

Basically, this depends on the method you choose. A simple RCA method, like the Dutch PRISMA method aims at building a quantitive database which should lead to suggestions for improvement. As such you will want to analyze as many incidents as possible. Short, quick investigations leading to (near) incidents captured in fault classifications.

A broader analysis, like Dutch SIRE, focuses on incidents with high negative impact or frequency. The outcome should justify the relative high number of hours spent on this activity. Our TPSC Investigate module enables you to perform both ends of the spectrum.

Flowchart TPSC Investigate
TPSC Investigate menu

What are the steps TPSC Investigate helps me to take?

The choice menu on the left of the opening screen is your guide. Besides taking 7 steps, initially you can gather project info and compose the work group. Then you are ready to follow the menu:

Step 1: Collect the information

Gather all the information about the incident. What happened? Who was involved? What do we know about the location? Insert interviews from the patient and/or the staff. Possibly you need to take pictures.

Step 2: Catalogue the information

Organize the information and reconstruct the incident. Put the event in a timeline so you get a chronological overview.

Step 3: Choose focus area

A difficult step as you will have to choose what were the most important events that lead to the incident. Try to intervene on the crucial parts.

Step 4: Define causes

Analyze the information to find the causes. Use our helpful tools:

  • Why questions
  • Ishikawa(herringbone) diagrams
  • Cause & effect diagrams
  • Barrier analysis
  • Process analysis

Step 5: Propose improvements

The purpose of this analysis is to prevent the researched incident from happening again. Based on your findings in the previous steps, you can now develop suggestions for improvement. Develop barriers.

Step 6: Compile the research report

Make upper management aware of the analysis. It makes sense to standardize your reports; use a standard format or template and it will be easier to digest your findings.

Step 7: Round off

Gather possible evaluations and outcomes and close the analysis.