Editing question

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/40342>:

> I'm copyediting an article for a nursing journal and I've come across
> the term "systems issue." Can someone define that term for me in 
> ordinary English? (I'm half-assuming that "issue" here means 
> "problem," but a circular definition like "a problem with the 
> systems" won't help me. Which "systems" and why is "systems" plural?)
> 
> The article is about falls by patients in nursing homes and the falls
> are referred to as "a systems issue," whatever that means.

In this case, I suspect that I would have said "systemic issue", meaning that the problem is caused by things deeply part of the situation, so solving/reducing the problem requires significant change to how the facility does stuff. 

I can think of examples in the theory of defect-free manufactuing, which asks why the defects occured, in order to prevent them, in contrast to the old method of never stop the assembly line, inspect the products at the end for defects, if there are too many defects, punish the workers. If defects were found that came from putting a module in bckwards, a change could be made to prevent this error, such as by painting the module to make it obvious which end is which.

But if the situation is that we give patients drugs that disrupt their balance and then put them in rooms with slippy throw rugs and no hand rails, then gluing down the rugs or installing hand rails doesn't sound like a deep change to how things are done.