Evaluating a medical error taxonomy

Authors

Juliana Brixey, University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.Follow
Todd R. Johnson, University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.Follow
Jiajie Zhang, University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.Follow

Publication Date

2002

Journal

Proc AMIA Symp. 2002; 71–75.

Abstract

Healthcare has been slow in using human factors principles to reduce medical errors. The Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) recognizes that a lack of attention to human factors during product development may lead to errors that have the potential for patient injury, or even death. In response to the need for reducing medication errors, the National Coordinating Council for Medication Errors Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) released the NCC MERP taxonomy that provides a standard language for reporting medication errors. This project maps the NCC MERP taxonomy of medication error to MedWatch medical errors involving infusion pumps. Of particular interest are human factors associated with medical device errors. The NCC MERP taxonomy of medication errors is limited in mapping information from MEDWATCH because of the focus on the medical device and the format of reporting.

Keywords

Medical Errors/classification, Controlled Vocabulary

Comments

PMCID: PMC2244554