Abstract
Although adverse events in medical practice are not a new phenomenon, their impact on the care of patients in our hospitals is becoming, increasingly, a source of public concern. Incident monitoring, as a tool for managing organizational error, has been used for many years in nonmedical areas such aviation, engineering, and the space and nuclear industries. Over the past 50 years, healthcare workers have slowly embraced this concept and developed applications mirroring those in industry to identify and manage problems in their own areas. Despite being a relativelynew medical specialty, anesthesia is acknowledged as one of the leaders in addressing patient safety and error reduction in clinical medicine. 1 The aim of this chapter is to develop a conceptual framework for error and how it impacts on our understanding of incidents and accidents in anesthetic practice. The role of incident monitoring is discussed in association with other methods of data acquisition. Finally, the place of incident monitoring as a component of a risk management program is reviewed with particular reference to the Australian Incident Monitoring Study (AIMS).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Wylie and Churchill-Davidsons |
Subtitle of host publication | A Practice of Anesthesia, Seventh Edition |
Publisher | CRC Press |
Pages | 671-685 |
Number of pages | 15 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781444114027 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780340731307 |
Publication status | Published or Issued - 1 Jan 2003 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine