Abstract
Prioritizing is an important part of risk management as it helps us to allocate resources to where they are of most utility. This requires us to quantify the different risks. All severe risks must be addressed as they can threaten the continued existence of the clinic or the life of a patient. However, also insignificant events that are highly likely to occur should be addressed, as they will drain the resources of the clinic. This process only indicates the priorities but does not suggest how to address the risk issue. In assessing risk, we are often hampered by the lack of knowledge of the exact nature of the risks, and quantifying the risk of rare events is problematic. Also, when assessing outcomes, one must know what to look for, and in many cases, we have a limited knowledge of the processes in human development and their vulnerabilities to our in vitro systems and the endocrine environment we create in ART. In principle, there are three ways of managing risk: elimination, reduction, and transfer.
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Acknowledgment
A previous version of this chapter was written in collaboration with the late Dr. Peter Sjöblom. We owe a debt of gratitude to him for his knowledge and his generous input from years of experience in the field of assisted reproduction.
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How can a risk evaluation be performed using a risk matrix where values of probability and severity are taken into account?
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Why is an O2 alarm mandatory in storage facilities for liquid nitrogen? Explain.
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Why is it important to focus on systematic causes of errors in any given process instead of conferring blame to individuals?
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What are the different kinds of burden conferred on a clinic by infrequent and serious errors vs. frequent and minor errors, respectively? Explain.
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Hreinsson, J., Borg, K. (2019). Risk and Safety in the IVF Clinic. In: Nagy, Z., Varghese, A., Agarwal, A. (eds) In Vitro Fertilization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43011-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43011-9_6
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