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Healthcare Technology Project TEST Hazard Log

In keeping with our commitment to transparency and openness, our Hazard Log is publicly visible and managed in GitHub using the Issues feature.

Each Issue represents a Hazard potentially affecting the project.

Hazards can be viewed (and indeed commented on, discussed, and improved) at the URL below:

https://github.com/example-org/your-repo

Instead of the more usual and somewhat outdated and chaotic 'spreadsheet' model, often used for Hazard Logs, we are using the Issues facility in GitHub to record Hazards.

  • Labels are used to annotate Hazard Issues with severity- and likelihood- scores, from which we can derive a risk-level-. See all Labels here

  • Milestones are used to designate the Initial Risk Assessment and Residual Risk Assessment. See all Milestones here

Most importantly, the discussion and evidence relating to any given risk is included in the recording of the risk. A complete history of the labelling is kept in the issue. Spreadsheet-based risk and hazard handling is inferior to this model, because spreadsheets are unsuited to discussion, text handling, and long-form discourse.

Spreadsheets Are Harmful.

Anyone who has used a spreadsheet knows how easy it is to accidentally delete or modify a cell or row inadvertently. In the context of a Hazard Log, this could lead to the accidental deletion of a Hazard, or the modification of a Hazard's severity or likelihood without any record of the change.

Yet, this "meta-Hazard" of 'Accidental deletion of a Hazard before it has been mitigated/risk-eliminated' is not recorded in anyone's CSMF Hazard Log.

Put simply, a spreadsheet is a poor choice of technology for managing text and in the opinion of the authors of this project, a totally unacceptable choice of technology for handling Hazards, yet it has become the industry standard across the NHS simply because the Hazard Log template issued by NHS Digital is a spreadsheet.

Monitoring of Risk

Using the Label search feature, one can search for Hazards at any Risk Level, in order to triage the most risky Hazards for further action.

risk-level-5-unacceptable
risk-level-4-mandatory-risk-elimination
risk-level-3-undesirable
risk-level-2-acceptable
risk-level-1-acceptable

  • We can filter for multiple labels.

Hazard Deletion

Hazards are never deleted but may be closed if there is no residual hazard and they are no longer relevant.

Alternative views

Using the GitHub Projects you can create a tabular (Excel-style) view, or a Kanban (Trello) view of your Hazards. Using built-in GitHub Issues and Pull Requests features you can link Hazards to their mitigations in code, to show a chain of evidence of clinical safety improvements.

Creating a Hazard

  1. Navigate to Issues
  2. Click on New Issue
  3. Use the Hazard Issue Template to guide you through adding the necessary information.
  4. Label according to Severity and Likelihood, then calculate Risk Level.
  5. Assign to CSO @csogithubhandle.
  6. Save by 'committing' to the repository.
  7. Review and ensure complete.
  8. Invite others to review and comment using @mention or by sharing the URL

Risk Matrix and Acceptability Criteria

risk-matrix