Patient Safety and Quality Improvement
 Modules  Module 3: The “Science” of Human Error
1. Introduction to Course
2. History of Patient Safety
3. The Science of Human Error
4. The Analysis of Medical Error
5. Evidence-Based Medical Practice
6. Communication and Information Transfer
7. Adverse Patient Outcomes
8. The Role of the Patient and Family
9. Environmental Safety in the Medical Setting
10. Safe Medical Practice In Ambulatory Settings

The Science of Error

  • Cognitive psychology – “must explain not only correct performance, but also the more predictable varieties of human fallibility. Far from being rooted in irrational or maladaptive tendencies, these recurrent error forms have their origins in fundamentally useful psychological processes.”
    • --Reason, 1990
  • “Knowledge and error flow from the same mental sources, only success can tell the difference”
    • --Ernst Mach, 1905 (quoted by Reason, 1990)
 
Copyright © University of New Mexico
Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center
Learning Design Center