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Risk Management Process 65

Figure 11.5 Harms Assessment List creation via expert opinion.

11.6.1.2 Method 2—Using expert opinion
In this method, you seek the opinions of multiple experts and ask them the question:
given that the Harm has happened, what is the likelihood of:

• Death
• Permanent impairment or life-threatening injury
• Injury or impairment that requires professional medical intervention
• Temporary injury or impairment that does not require professional medical
intervention
• Inconvenience, or temporary discomfort or no harm

Ask this question for every Harm that is listed in the HAL. Then aggregate the
responses of all the experts into an overall table. Fig. 11.5 displays a graphical repre-
sentation of this method.
Method 2 is inferior to Method 1, because it depends on the subjective opinion of
clinicians. The opinion of a clinician is formed by their personal experience with
their patients, which is naturally limited. The more clinicians that are interviewed, the
better the quality of the data in the HAL.
Delphi technique—As an extra means of improving the quality of the HAL, it is
recommended to show the aggregated HAL to the interviewed clinicians, in a second
round of interviews. It may be that they would change their minds on their initial
estimates, once they see the aggregate of the collective opinions. If they change their