ACEP Now - By Marco C - April 13, 2016
"As emergency physicians, we strive for perfection. We strive for quality medical care, diagnostic accuracy,patient safety, and patient satisfaction. However, medical errors are an inevitable reality in the practice of medicine. We focus attention on education and systems to reduce the incidence of medical errors and to manage outcomes after a medical error. Increased attention to medical errors resulted from the Institute of Medicine landmark report “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” in 2000. In this report, an error is defined as failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (error of execution) or use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (error of planning). Errors may be classified as serious errors (errors that cause permanent injury or transient but potentially life-threatening harm), minor errors (errors that cause harm that is neither permanent or potentially life-threatening), and near-miss errors (errors that could have caused harm but did not either by chance or by timely intervention).
Errors occur commonly in the ED environment. A recent study showed that 56 percent of U.S. physicians have been involved with a serious error, 74 percent have been involved with a minor error, and 66 percent have been involved with a near-miss error..:"