ABSTRACT

Since the 1980s, there has been an active attempt to increase the health care system’s accountability regarding quality, safety, and efficiency. High safety standards are now mandatory for all patients. This sit­ uation represents a great challenge since medicine, for many reasons, is laden with potential risks. This chapter tries to offer a comprehensive survey of human error (HE) and related-safety strategies con­ cepts, whether derived from industry or field-depen­ dent. The chapter is divided into three sections. This introduction gives a brief overview of the extent and specifics of risks encountered in the industry, and then in the medical field. The second section defines HE-related issues in medicine. The third section drafts three generic solution spaces for error reduc­ tion: a “person approach” (errors of individuals), a “systems approach” (errors of organizations), and a “dynamic approach” (adaptation of error reduction strategies as safety improves). Each subsection sug­ gests a set of related strategies to reduce the errors, and gives directions on how to combine them.