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Human Error Theory in Health Care

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Human Error Theory in Health Care
Introduction
Patient safety is a basic standard of health care. Every step in health care service contains intrinsic unsafe factors .The combination among newest technologies, health innovations and treatments have introduced a synergistic development in health care industry, and transformed it into more complex field. This rise health safety risks which may result from problems in practice, procedures and medicine etc .This Essay will discuss the relationship between human factors and patient safety.
Definitions
“Patient safety is the reduction of unnecessary harm associated with healthcares to acceptable minimum “(Runciman ,Hibbert , Thomson , Der Schaaf , Sherman ,Lewalle , 2009)
Human error in health care can be observed by two different methods: “the person approach and the system approach”, each model has own perspectives .Understanding these differences has a significant practical outcomes in healthcare industry and open sights for management of medical error (Reason, 2000). The person approach stress on the hazardous act and procedural deviations of nurses, physicians, pharmacists. It analyses these risky acts as resulting mainly from deviant mental functions such as lack of memory & concentration , poor enthusiasm , carelessness, , and recklessness(Reason, 2000) .The associated preventive measures are intended mainly at decreasing risky inconsistency in human performance (Reason, 2000) .
Whereas the system approach insight human errors as consequences rather than causes, thus it relays the reasons for error occurrence on failure of organizational system (Reason, 2000). Countermeasures are established on the theory that although “we cannot change the human condition, we can adjust the circumstances under which humans work” (Reason, 2000).
Human error Theory
Patients always expect miraculous solutions to each problem. In such expectations people who receive medical services tend to believe that no mistakes can happen. It is actually not so,



References: Carayon, P. (2010).Human factors in patient safety as an innovation. Applied Ergonomics, 41(5): 657-665. Handler,S., Castle, N., Studenski, S., Perera, S., Fridsma, D., Nace, D., & Hanlon, J. (2006). Patient safety culture assessment in the nursing home. Qual Saf Health Care 15(6), 400-404. Karmen, L. (2008). Pilot, Swiss cheese, and cash machinery: Health of the Health System. Croatian Medical Journal, 49(5), 689. Moyen, E., Camire, E., & Stelfox, H.T. (2008). Clinical review: medication errors in critical care. Critical Care Medicine, 12(2), 208. Taxis, K., & Barber, N. (2003). Ethnographic study of incidence and severity of intravenous drug errors.British Medical Journal, 11, 326. Reason, J. (2000). Human error: models and management. British Medical Journal, 320:768-70. Runciman, W., Hibbert,P., Thomson, R., Schaaf, T.V.D., Sherman, H., & Lewalle, P. (2009). Towards an international classification for patient safety: key concepts and terms. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 21(1).18-26. Wagner, C., Wal, G., Groenewegen, P., & Bakker, D. (2001). The effectiveness of quality systems in nursing homes: a review. Qual Health Care 10(4), 211-217. .

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