Accountable Risk Management in Healthcare During the COVID-19 Pandemic; the Role of STSA and AI

Effective governance necessitates going beyond compliance with rules, regulations and procedures; particularly as adverse events are generally the result of a combination of human, organisational, technological, and economic factors. This study explores the use of socio-technical systems analysis (STSA) in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform called Access-Risk-Knowledge (ARK) to go beyond established accountability frameworks by linking evidence, outcomes, and accountability. The aim of the ARK-Virus project was to use the ARK Platform to support mindful risk governance of infection prevention and control (IPC) for healthcare organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. ARK was deployed across three healthcare organisations: a fire and ambulance service, an outpatient dialysis unit, and a large acute hospital. Each organisation conducted an IPC case study, the three of which were then compiled into a synthesis project. A set of guidance principles for a pandemic preparedness strategy were proposed using the synthesis project findings. A Community of Practice (CoP) enabled the successful deployment of ARK, including intense interdisciplinary collaboration and was facilitated by practitioner-researchers in the implementing organisations. Data governance methods and tools supported a whole organisation and multi-organisation approach to risk. This first full implementation trial of the ARK platform deployed dedicated STSA within a semantically structured AI framework, demonstrating accountable risk management that addresses the complex antecedents of risk, links to evidence, and has the potential for managing the full cycle of risk mitigation and improvement.