Reason 1

Although information about a new event, such as a low risk index, leads to the decision to stop at a routine investigation, HAWK may indicate that many similar events have been reported in the past.

Even though the risk from the single event is not great, perhaps the cost of repeatedly correcting the event adds up in terms of resources. The QA SysOp has the option to increase the new event's priority and conduct a root cause analysis.

Reason 2

Although information about the new event has indicated that a root cause analysis is recommended, HAWK may identify other similar previous events for which causal analyses have already been done.

If a previous case is similar enough (based on a side-by-side comparison of data), it may be believed that no significant lesson can be learned by doing another causal analysis and resources would be better spent elsewhere.

In that case, the QA SysOp can "link" the new event to the most similar previous event using the "Link to Accession Number" field on the QA SysOp Investigation Report.