Safety case chain
Follow one failure from failure mode to hazard, harm, control, signal, stop rule and a named owner.
Safety case chain
If you have taken Healthcare AI Modules 2–5, this builds on that failure catalogue; if not, you can still use the tool as a structured safety conversation.
What this safety-case tool adds is the translation. A failure mode only becomes a safety concern when you can say what situation it creates in a specific workflow, who could be harmed, what would catch it, and what you would watch to know whether the catch is working. That is the chain, and it is the work of a safety case.
Anything you type here is stored in this browser only. Please avoid entering patient-identifiable or commercially confidential information.
Work one chain through
Take one real or plausible failure and follow it all the way to a named owner. Your text is saved in this browser only, and is the same wherever you open this chain.
What did the system actually do, other than intended?
What situation does that failure create?
Who could be harmed, and how?
What breaks the link between hazard and harm, and in which layer does it act?
What would you watch that shows this is happening?
What threshold or event stops or restricts use, and who can invoke it?
Who is named and accountable, by role?
The chain, worked throughOptional. A worked example of each link, from the course.
One row, worked through, using the generative omission introduced in Healthcare AI Module 4. The point is the movement from left to right: each column constrains the next, and a gap in any column is where the argument breaks.
- Failure mode: The drafted discharge summary omits a medication change made on the ward round.
- Hazard: The patient and their GP receive a medication list that contradicts the decision actually taken.
- Harm: A dose adjustment is not made in the community; avoidable deterioration or readmission, plus the clinical time spent unpicking it.
- Control: The draft is shown against a structured view of medications and ward-round decisions, so review is a comparison rather than open-ended recall.
- Monitoring signal: Sampled review of signed summaries against the record, reported with the approval rate and time-to-approval.
- Stop or escalation rule: A clinically significant medication omission found in sampling triggers same-day review by the named owner and suspension of the medication section if a second is found.
- Owner: Named: the ward's clinical lead, with the pharmacy lead for the medication section.
Before you use this
This tool is a prompt for judgement, not a substitute for it. These short sections give you what you need to interpret the answers you get.
The full course behind this
This tool is one step of a longer module in the Practitioner course, where it sits alongside the cases, exercises and evidence that make it usable.
Module 7 — Safety, Human Factors & Responsible AIProvenance: this tool restates criteria taught in that module, which cites official EU legal texts, reporting guidelines and peer-reviewed literature. Educational decision aid only, not legal or clinical advice; regulatory points were checked in September 2026.