Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

What is an error?

T P Hofer1, E A Kerr, R A Hayward

  • 1Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, Mich., USA. thofer@umich.edu

Effective Clinical Practice : ECP
|January 11, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Clinical Trials: An Evaluation of 13 Large Clinical Trials Using Individual Patient Data.

Value in health : the journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research·2016
Same author

Screening intervals for diabetic retinopathy and incidence of visual loss: a systematic review.

Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association·2013
Same author

Variation in organ quality between liver transplant centers.

American journal of transplantation : official journal of the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons·2011
Same author

Knowledge of blood pressure targets among patients with diabetes.

Primary care diabetes·2008
Same author

2-W Ho:YAG laser intracavity pumped by a diode-pumped Tm:YAG laser.

Optics letters·2007
Same author

Barriers to following dietary recommendations in Type 2 diabetes.

Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association·2004
Same journal

Using the Veterans Health Administration inpatient care database: trends in the use of antireflux surgery.

Effective clinical practice : ECP·2002
Same journal

Veterans Health Administration inpatient and outpatient care data: an overview.

Effective clinical practice : ECP·2002
Same journal

Using the National Health Interview Survey: time trends in influenza vaccinations among targeted adults.

Effective clinical practice : ECP·2002
Same journal

The National Health Interview Survey: an overview.

Effective clinical practice : ECP·2002
Same journal

The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey: an overview.

Effective clinical practice : ECP·2002
Same journal

The healthcare cost and utilization project: an overview.

Effective clinical practice : ECP·2002
See all related articles

Medical errors need clear definitions linking process failures to patient harm. Efforts to reduce errors should prioritize those with the greatest impact on patient outcomes and be cost-effective.

Area of Science:

  • Healthcare Quality Improvement
  • Patient Safety Research
  • Medical Error Analysis

Background:

  • The Institute of Medicine's "To Err is Human" report highlighted medical error reduction as a critical healthcare priority.
  • Significant efforts have been made across the U.S. healthcare system to address medical errors.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify and analyze existing definitions of medical error.
  • To determine the primary challenges in accurately measuring medical errors.
  • To provide recommendations for advancing the field of medical error research and reduction.

Main Methods:

  • A comprehensive review of medical literature.
  • Inclusion of relevant studies from sociology and industrial psychology.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Current definitions of medical error often lack a direct link to patient harm.
  • Few studies have reliably measured medical errors, and their measurement reliability is often undescribed.
  • The relationship between medical errors and adverse patient events remains under-examined.
  • The utility of analyzing latent system errors via case studies or root cause analysis is not well-established.

Conclusions:

  • Medical error should be defined by process failures demonstrably linked to adverse patient outcomes.
  • Error reduction strategies must be proportional to their impact on patient outcomes (morbidity, mortality, satisfaction) and prevention costs.
  • The medical error and quality improvement movements require a unified, rigorous epidemiologic approach to establish causality.