After Your Root Cause Analysis Tip Sheet

Completing a Root Cause Analysis is only the start. The real value lies in turning findings into reliable, measurable improvements. This tip sheet provides a clear, action-oriented roadmap to help teams move from “we know what happened” to “we prevented it from happening again.”

Who it’s for:

Risk management and patient safety teams
Quality improvement leaders and performance improvement staff
Managers and directors responsible for operational follow-through
Project teams implementing corrective action plans

What it can be used for:

Building stronger, higher-reliability corrective action plans
Prioritizing actions by effectiveness (system fixes over education-only fixes)
Assigning owners, timelines, and accountability across departments
Supporting regulatory readiness and documentation consistency

What’s Inside:

Situation: Common post-RCA challenges (action fatigue, weak fixes, unclear ownership)
Background: Why corrective actions fail and what makes them stick
Assessment: How to evaluate action strength, feasibility, and risk reduction potential
Recommendations: Steps to implement, communicate, measure, and sustain improvements

Access the Tip Sheet

A root cause analysis (RCA) is a systematic approach to understanding the causes when an adverse event occurs, and it is imperative to identify system flaws that can be corrected to prevent the event from recurring.