ABSTRACT
Executive Summary The history of modern medical lathology began about 40 years ago. Most initial contributions related to medical error came from psychologists and specialists in cognitive science, studying both system and individual-, operator-, and human-produced error. Since the nineties, health professionals and new agencies (originally in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada) have transferred, adapted, and enriched nonmedical experiences and methodological developments, bringing them into the domain of healthcare including
hospital and primary care, community medicine, and public health. From currently prevalent paradigms of system, or “no blame” error and error-producing individuals positioned as decision makers and executants of actions at the end of the chain of other contributing factors, comes a diverse and heterogeneous array of basic notions, terms, and definitions that are in part responsible for the still heterogeneous domain of medical or nonmedical lathology. Statisticians, informaticians, cognitive scientists, physicians, and nurses may use quite different definitions starting with error itself.
