Abstract:  Existing studies on medical risk cost mainly pay attention to complication cost, but ignore medical risk cost of clinical pathway. To solve this problem, based on reliability theory, a new inventory method is developed in this paper. By combining fault tree analysis (FTA) with failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), this method is able to analyze the risk factors in clinical pathway. Then, with average cost of resolve and risk score, the medical risk cost of clinical pathway can be calculated. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by an esophageal cancer surgery clinical pathway in a hospital in Beijing. It is estimated that the weighted average cost of resolve for an esophageal cancer surgery is 14 710, while the weighted average cost of resolve for an annual esophageal cancer surgery is 397 290, which is a good estimation. Thus, the proposed method can effectively estimate the medical risk cost of a clinical pathway and provides guidance for the practical application.

Key words: fault tree analysis, failure mode and effect analysis, medical risk cost