OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to understand the nature of medical error in highly technological environments and argues that a comparison with aviation can blur its real understanding. METHODS: This study is a comparative study between the notion of error in health care and aviation based on the author's own ethnographic study in intensive care units and findings from the research literature on errors in aviation. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Failures in the use of medical technology are common...
Keywords: Medical error, safety-critical systems, medical technology, aviation, adverse incidents
01/2003 | Methods of Information in Medicine, Schattauer