A Two-phased Study to Rank the Hazards in the Healthcare System: A Case Study of the Operating Rooms of Farabi Hospital in Tehran, Iran

Background: Healthcare systems are exposed to various occupational hazards (e.g., infectious diseases), which threaten the health and safety of the employees. This study, conducted in September 2017 aimed to outline a two-phased approach for the identification of the most important hazards accurately and rapidly and better decision-making in the next step of risk management. Methods: This two-phased study aimed to rank the most important hazards in the operating room of a hospital and identify the hazards using two methods (HAZID and ANP) consecutively. Data management was performed in the Super Decisions software. Results: In total, 44 hazards were analyzed in three categories, and five hazards (occupational stress, formaldehyde exposure, shift work, poor posture, and exposure to anesthetic gases) had the highest priority. The normalized values of the alternatives obtained from a limit super matrix were 0.33, 0.251, 0.258, 0.096, and 0.06. Occupational stress was the most weighted hazard, while formaldehyde exposure was the least weighted hazard. Conclusion: Using the two approaches of hazard identification helped us conduct new, rapid hazard identification activities and increased the accuracy of the process as well. As a result, the time-consuming risk assessment phase was focused on the most important hazards.