Assessment of latent factors contributing to error: addressing surgical pathology error wisely

Methods to improve surgical pathology patient safety include measuring the frequency of error in specific steps of the surgical pathology testing process, root cause analysis of active and latent components, and implementation of quality improvement initiatives.

To determine the frequency and cause of near-miss events in the specimen accessioning, setup, and biopsy-only gross examination testing steps of anatomic pathology.

We used an observational checklist method to identify near-miss events. We performed root cause analysis to determine latent factors contributing to near-miss events. We conducted observations for 45 hours during 5 days, involving the accessioning and processing of 335 specimens.

We detected a total of 2310 process-dependent and 266 operator-dependent near-miss events, resulting in a near-miss-event frequency of 5.5 per specimen. Root cause analysis showed that all process and operator near-miss events were associated with multiple system latent factors, including lack of standardized protocols, appropriate knowledge transfer, and focus on safety culture.

We conclude that the increased focus on surgical pathology near-miss events will reveal latent factors that may be targeted for improvement.