Application of Root Cause Analysis

Law enforcement officers often must use problem-solving skills to address issues when solving crimes. Being able to identify the root causes of a problem you are facing and determine potential solutions is a skill criminal justice practitioners use often. A very common issue, and one that is paramount to solving crimes, is witness cooperation. In this summative assessment, you research a criminal case where witness cooperation was problematic and, by using the information available to you, perform a root cause analysis. Use the material you have learned this week to propose strategies that law enforcement officers could use to mitigate the issue.
Research a criminal case where witness cooperation was an issue for investigators.
Imagine you are one of the investigators and write an 825 word case audit for your police chief as part of the agency’s quality control procedures. Address the following in your case audit:

  • Summarize the facts of the selected criminal case.
  • Discuss the challenges investigators faced in dealing with witnesses to the crime.
  • Conduct a root cause analysis (RCA) using the 5 Whys approach on the problem investigators faced with witness cooperation.
  • Propose 3 strategies that investigators could have used to improve communication and cooperation with witnesses during the criminal investigation.
  • Explain why these strategies would have been successful.

Application of Root Cause Analysis

As you have examined in this course, errors and mishaps, although not frequent, do occur in health services organizations. While the aim is to deliver effective and quality care, errors due to systems processes or inefficient system checks still exist. As a current or future health care administration leader, applying process tools to analyze and determine the causes of such errors will likely impact initiatives aimed at fostering health care quality and safety.
For this Assignment, review articles that are specific to RCA. Reflect on the AHRQ article regarding factors that may lead to latent error and the New York Times article regarding the doctor who removed the wrong limb from a patient. Think about recommendations you might make to prevent errors such as these from occurring in your health services organization.
• Briefly summarize the salient facts of the New York Times article.
• Using the AHRQ table regarding factors that may lead to latent error, assess how each factor might have contributed to the wrong-limb surgery.
• Qualitatively assess how much each factor contributed to the error.
• Provide recommendations that you believe would present such an event from occurring again, and explain why you made these recommendations. Be specific and provide examples.