CPPS COMPREHENSIVE EXAM UPDATED QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Why is it important to share lessons learned from RCAs?
A.) It exposes the fallibility of the clinician(s) involved.
B.) It allows others to introduce workarounds to avoid the same situation.
C.) It allows co-workers to learn the rationale for why an event occurred and incorporate
new lessons learned into practice
D.) Sharing these events should not be encouraged because it increases the risk of
litigation. - ✔✔C.) It allows co-workers to learn the rationale for why an event occurred
and incorporate new lessons learned into practice.
Sharing allows others to adopt new methods and to heighten risk awareness. In regard
to the other possible answers: The goal of an RCA is not to place blame on individual
clinicians, and workarounds are oftentimes unsafe practices that ignore systems issues
that require fixing. Sharing lessons learned from an RCA may decrease the risk of
litigation by improving patient safety and reducing the likelihood of an adverse event
occurring again.
✔✔A strategy used to overcome failure in a process is the use of a checklist. To match
the limit of working memory, a good rule when creating a checklist is to keep the
number of tasks between how many items?
A.) 1 and 5
B.) 3 and 10
C.) 5 and 9
D.) 10 and 15 - ✔✔C.) 5 and 9.
Psychologists who study human memory recommend keeping the number of items
between five and nine, which is the maximum number the human memory can
remember.
✔✔A serious adverse event resulting in a patient death has occurred at your facility.
What is the first step in the root cause analysis process?
A.) Perform individual interviews with involved staff members.
B.) Gather appropriate information.
C.) Identify RCA team members.
D.) Identify factors that contributed to the event. - ✔✔C.) Identify RCA team members.
Correct Answer:Identify RCA team members.The first step in an RCA is to form the
team, which then gathers the appropriate information, identifies factors contributing to
the event, and interviews staff members involved.
✔✔What is the best strategy or technique to identify and eliminate known and/or
potential problems and errors from a system, design, process, and/or service before
they occur?
,A.) Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA)
B.) Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)
C.) Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC)
D.) Root cause analysis (RCA) - ✔✔B.) Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)
Correct Answer:Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)FMEAs are used to
proactively mitigate risk and attempt to identify failures before they occur. PDSA is an
iterative problem solving model for process improvement. RCA is used in response to
an event to attempt to get to the root problem or cause. DMAIC refers to a data-driven
improvement cycle.
✔✔Your organization is preparing to change to a new electronic health record. Many
departments have been involved with the planning for this huge effort.
What would you suggest as part of the preparation strategy?
A.) Suggest a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle.
B.) Offer to do a claims analysis for any related errors.
C.) Conduct a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA).
D.) Conduct a root cause analysis (RCA). - ✔✔C.) Conduct a failure modes and effects
analysis (FMEA).
Correct Answer:Conduct a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA).FMEA would be
valuable step for anticipating gaps in the planning so that people can address potential
problems before implementing the new system. A PDSA cycle would be a good way to
test and implement any changes, but it wouldn't help diagnose problems.
✔✔Patient safety themes linked to improvement of medication adherence by a patient
are:
A.) Briefs, huddles, and debriefs
B.) Leadership, communication, and patient advocacy
C.) Patient and family engagement, health literacy, and transitions in care
D.) Medication reconciliation, bedside shift report, and nurse double-check - ✔✔D.)
Medication reconciliation, bedside shift report, and nurse double-check
Correct Answer:Patient and family engagement, health literacy, and transitions in
carePatient and family engagement, health literacy, and transitions in care are patient
safety themes to improve medication adherence. Medication reconciliation, shift report,
double checks, briefs, huddles, and debriefs are patient safety tools. Leadership,
communication, and advocacy are patient safety themes but are not the best choice for
themes related to improving medication adherence.
✔✔A medication error is self-reported by a nurse to the risk manager. The manager
tells the nurse to complete an incident report. Upon review of the patient safety event,
the manager notices that the nurse overrode a safety check on the barcode scan
system. Further review of the "override" report reveals that several other nurses have
also overridden the system. The risk manager further investigates and finds out that
, there was an issue with the printer in registration on that day, which meant that the
barcode scanner could not read the patient ID bracelets.
This is an example of what type of analysis?
A.) Failure mode and effects analysis
B.) Root cause analysis
C.) Event report analysis
D.) Process analysis - ✔✔B.) Root cause analysis
Correct Answer:Root cause analysis-Root cause analysis is a methodical investigation
of the error/event by continuously asking why until you come to the actual cause of the
error. Failure mode and effects analysis is usually performed when rolling out something
new. Event report analysis is a description of what happened, not necessarily the
cause. Process analysis looks at how something is done, rather than why something
happened.
✔✔Which of the following error-reduction strategies is considered the strongest in
preventing errors?
A.) Fail-safes
B.) Education
C.) Standardization
D.) Checklists - ✔✔A.) Fail-safes
Correct Answer:Fail-safesFail-safes are the strongest strategy to prevent errors
because even if the person fails, there is a back-up that keeps the error from occurring.
Education relies on memory, so it's a fairly weak strategy. Standardization and
checklists are moderate strategies to prevent errors.
✔✔A new medication administration safety process was implemented in a hospital. A
team convened to perform a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) and calculate a risk
priority number (RPN). After a targeted medication safety program on the new process
was delivered to nurses, the same team was convened to perform another FMEA.
Which of the following would the team be happy to see?
A.) The frequency numbers increased and RPNs were lower.
B.) The detectability increased and RPNs were lower.
C.) The frequency numbers decreased and RPNs were higher.
D.) The detectability decreased and RPNs were lower. - ✔✔B.) The detectability
increased and RPNs were lower.
Correct Answer:The detectability increased and RPNs were lower.The team would be
seeing an improvement if the detectability was higher, meaning safety risks and defects
were easier to identify and therefore resolve. It's important to note that detectability has
an inverse scale, so higher detectability gets a lower score reflecting lower risk. The
RPN represents the overall risk of harm, so improvement would be occurring if that
number decreased.
ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Why is it important to share lessons learned from RCAs?
A.) It exposes the fallibility of the clinician(s) involved.
B.) It allows others to introduce workarounds to avoid the same situation.
C.) It allows co-workers to learn the rationale for why an event occurred and incorporate
new lessons learned into practice
D.) Sharing these events should not be encouraged because it increases the risk of
litigation. - ✔✔C.) It allows co-workers to learn the rationale for why an event occurred
and incorporate new lessons learned into practice.
Sharing allows others to adopt new methods and to heighten risk awareness. In regard
to the other possible answers: The goal of an RCA is not to place blame on individual
clinicians, and workarounds are oftentimes unsafe practices that ignore systems issues
that require fixing. Sharing lessons learned from an RCA may decrease the risk of
litigation by improving patient safety and reducing the likelihood of an adverse event
occurring again.
✔✔A strategy used to overcome failure in a process is the use of a checklist. To match
the limit of working memory, a good rule when creating a checklist is to keep the
number of tasks between how many items?
A.) 1 and 5
B.) 3 and 10
C.) 5 and 9
D.) 10 and 15 - ✔✔C.) 5 and 9.
Psychologists who study human memory recommend keeping the number of items
between five and nine, which is the maximum number the human memory can
remember.
✔✔A serious adverse event resulting in a patient death has occurred at your facility.
What is the first step in the root cause analysis process?
A.) Perform individual interviews with involved staff members.
B.) Gather appropriate information.
C.) Identify RCA team members.
D.) Identify factors that contributed to the event. - ✔✔C.) Identify RCA team members.
Correct Answer:Identify RCA team members.The first step in an RCA is to form the
team, which then gathers the appropriate information, identifies factors contributing to
the event, and interviews staff members involved.
✔✔What is the best strategy or technique to identify and eliminate known and/or
potential problems and errors from a system, design, process, and/or service before
they occur?
,A.) Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA)
B.) Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)
C.) Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC)
D.) Root cause analysis (RCA) - ✔✔B.) Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)
Correct Answer:Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)FMEAs are used to
proactively mitigate risk and attempt to identify failures before they occur. PDSA is an
iterative problem solving model for process improvement. RCA is used in response to
an event to attempt to get to the root problem or cause. DMAIC refers to a data-driven
improvement cycle.
✔✔Your organization is preparing to change to a new electronic health record. Many
departments have been involved with the planning for this huge effort.
What would you suggest as part of the preparation strategy?
A.) Suggest a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle.
B.) Offer to do a claims analysis for any related errors.
C.) Conduct a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA).
D.) Conduct a root cause analysis (RCA). - ✔✔C.) Conduct a failure modes and effects
analysis (FMEA).
Correct Answer:Conduct a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA).FMEA would be
valuable step for anticipating gaps in the planning so that people can address potential
problems before implementing the new system. A PDSA cycle would be a good way to
test and implement any changes, but it wouldn't help diagnose problems.
✔✔Patient safety themes linked to improvement of medication adherence by a patient
are:
A.) Briefs, huddles, and debriefs
B.) Leadership, communication, and patient advocacy
C.) Patient and family engagement, health literacy, and transitions in care
D.) Medication reconciliation, bedside shift report, and nurse double-check - ✔✔D.)
Medication reconciliation, bedside shift report, and nurse double-check
Correct Answer:Patient and family engagement, health literacy, and transitions in
carePatient and family engagement, health literacy, and transitions in care are patient
safety themes to improve medication adherence. Medication reconciliation, shift report,
double checks, briefs, huddles, and debriefs are patient safety tools. Leadership,
communication, and advocacy are patient safety themes but are not the best choice for
themes related to improving medication adherence.
✔✔A medication error is self-reported by a nurse to the risk manager. The manager
tells the nurse to complete an incident report. Upon review of the patient safety event,
the manager notices that the nurse overrode a safety check on the barcode scan
system. Further review of the "override" report reveals that several other nurses have
also overridden the system. The risk manager further investigates and finds out that
, there was an issue with the printer in registration on that day, which meant that the
barcode scanner could not read the patient ID bracelets.
This is an example of what type of analysis?
A.) Failure mode and effects analysis
B.) Root cause analysis
C.) Event report analysis
D.) Process analysis - ✔✔B.) Root cause analysis
Correct Answer:Root cause analysis-Root cause analysis is a methodical investigation
of the error/event by continuously asking why until you come to the actual cause of the
error. Failure mode and effects analysis is usually performed when rolling out something
new. Event report analysis is a description of what happened, not necessarily the
cause. Process analysis looks at how something is done, rather than why something
happened.
✔✔Which of the following error-reduction strategies is considered the strongest in
preventing errors?
A.) Fail-safes
B.) Education
C.) Standardization
D.) Checklists - ✔✔A.) Fail-safes
Correct Answer:Fail-safesFail-safes are the strongest strategy to prevent errors
because even if the person fails, there is a back-up that keeps the error from occurring.
Education relies on memory, so it's a fairly weak strategy. Standardization and
checklists are moderate strategies to prevent errors.
✔✔A new medication administration safety process was implemented in a hospital. A
team convened to perform a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) and calculate a risk
priority number (RPN). After a targeted medication safety program on the new process
was delivered to nurses, the same team was convened to perform another FMEA.
Which of the following would the team be happy to see?
A.) The frequency numbers increased and RPNs were lower.
B.) The detectability increased and RPNs were lower.
C.) The frequency numbers decreased and RPNs were higher.
D.) The detectability decreased and RPNs were lower. - ✔✔B.) The detectability
increased and RPNs were lower.
Correct Answer:The detectability increased and RPNs were lower.The team would be
seeing an improvement if the detectability was higher, meaning safety risks and defects
were easier to identify and therefore resolve. It's important to note that detectability has
an inverse scale, so higher detectability gets a lower score reflecting lower risk. The
RPN represents the overall risk of harm, so improvement would be occurring if that
number decreased.
