An error (from the Latin ''error'', meaning "wandering") is an action which is inaccurate or incorrect. In some usages, an error is synonymous with a mistake. The etymology derives from the Latin term 'errare', meaning 'to stray'.
In
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
, "error" refers to the difference between the value which has been computed and the correct value. An error could result in
failure
Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective (goal), objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of Success (concept), success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a parti ...
or in a
deviation from the intended performance or behavior.
Human behavior
One reference differentiates between "error" and "mistake" as follows:
In
human behavior
Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. L ...
the norms or expectations for behavior or its consequences can be derived from the intention of the actor or from the expectations of other individuals or from a social grouping or from
social norms
Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or soci ...
. (See
deviance.) Gaffes and faux pas can be labels for certain instances of this kind of error. More serious departures from social norms carry labels such as misbehavior and labels from the legal system, such as
misdemeanor
A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than adm ...
and
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...
. Departures from norms connected to religion can have other labels, such as
sin
In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
.
An individual
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
user's deviations from standard language norms in
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
,
pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
and
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
are sometimes referred to as
errors. However, in light of the role of language usage in everyday
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
distinctions, many feel that
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
should restrain itself from such
prescriptivist judgments to avoid reinforcing dominant class value claims about what linguistic forms should and should not be used. One may distinguish various kinds of linguistic errors – some, such as
aphasia
Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in th ...
or
speech disorder
Speech disorders or speech impairments are a type of communication disorder in which normal speech is disrupted. This can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute. Speech skills ar ...
s, where the user is unable to say what they intend to, are generally considered errors, while cases where natural, intended speech is
non-standard
Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
(as in vernacular dialects), are considered legitimate speech in scholarly linguistics, but might be considered errors in prescriptivist contexts. See also
Error analysis (linguistics)
In linguistics, according to J. Richard et al., (2002), an error is the use of a word, speech act or grammatical items in such a way that it seems imperfect and significant of an incomplete learning (184). It is considered by Norrish (1983, p.  ...
.
Gaffe
A gaffe is usually made in a
social environment
The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...
and may come from saying something that may be true but inappropriate. It may also be an erroneous attempt to reveal a truth. Gaffes can be
malapropism
A malapropism (also called a malaprop, acyrologia, or Dogberryism) is the mistaken use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, sometimes humorous utterance. An example is the statement attributed to ...
s, grammatical errors or other verbal and gestural weaknesses or revelations through
body language
Body language is a type of communication in which physical behaviors, as opposed to words, are used to express or convey information. Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space. Th ...
. Actually revealing factual or social truth through words or body language, however, can commonly result in embarrassment or, when the gaffe has negative connotations, friction between people involved.
Philosophers and psychologists interested in the nature of the gaffe include
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
(
Freudian slip
In psychoanalysis, a Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that occurs due to the interference of an unconscious subdued wish or internal train of thought. Classical examples involve slips of t ...
) and
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...
. Deleuze, in his ''
The Logic of Sense
''The Logic of Sense'' (french: Logique du sens) is a 1969 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. The English edition was translated by Mark Lester and Charles Stivale, and edited by Constantin V. Boundas.
Summary
An exploration of meani ...
'', places the gaffe in a developmental process that can culminate in stuttering.
Sportswriters and journalists commonly use "gaffe" to refer to any kind of mistake, e.g. a dropped ball (
baseball error) by a player in a baseball game.
Science and engineering
![TrafficSignIsraelError](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/TrafficSignIsraelError.JPG)
In
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
, an
''error'' (or ''residual'') is not a "mistake" but rather a difference between a computed, estimated, or measured value and the accepted true, specified, or theoretically correct value.
In science and engineering in general, an error is defined as a difference between the desired and actual
performance
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
or
behavior
Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...
of a
system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
or
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ai ...
. This definition is the basis of operation for many types of
control system
A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial c ...
s, in which error is defined as the difference between a set point and the process value. An example of this would be the thermostat in a home heating system – the operation of the heating equipment is controlled by the difference (the error) between the thermostat setting and the sensed air temperature. Another approach is related to considering a scientific hypothesis as true or false, giving birth to two types of errors:
Type 1 and Type 2. The first one is when a true hypothesis is considered false, while the second is the reverse (a false one is considered true).
Engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
s seek to design
devices,
machine
A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to na ...
s and
system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
s and in such a way as to mitigate or preferably avoid the effects of error, whether
unintentional or not. Such errors in a system can be latent
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
errors that may go unnoticed for years, until the right set of circumstances arises that cause them to become active. Other errors in engineered systems can arise due to
human error
Human error refers to something having been done that was " not intended by the actor; not desired by a set of rules or an external observer; or that led the task or system outside its acceptable limits".Senders, J.W. and Moray, N.P. (1991) Human ...
, which includes
cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
.
Human factors
Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
engineering is often applied to designs in an attempt to minimize this type of error by making systems more forgiving or
error-tolerant
An error-tolerant design (also: human-error-tolerant design) is one that does not unduly penalize user or human errors. It is the human equivalent of fault tolerant design that allows equipment to continue functioning in the presence of hardware ...
.
(In
computational mechanics
Computational mechanics is the discipline concerned with the use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. Before the emergence of computational science (also called scientific computing) as a "third w ...
, when solving a system such as ''Ax'' = ''b'' there is a distinction between the "error" – the inaccuracy in ''x'' – and
residual – the inaccuracy in ''Ax''.)
![Poles inside rail lines](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Poles_inside_rail_lines.jpg)
A notable result of Engineering and Scientific errors that occurred in history is the
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
of 1986, which caused a nuclear meltdown in the City of
Chernobyl
Chernobyl ( , ; russian: Чернобыль, ) or Chornobyl ( uk, Чорнобиль, ) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about no ...
in present day
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, and is used as a case study in many Engineering/Science research
Numerical analysis
Numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...
provides a variety of techniques to represent (store) and compute
approximation
An approximation is anything that is intentionally similar but not exactly equality (mathematics), equal to something else.
Etymology and usage
The word ''approximation'' is derived from Latin ''approximatus'', from ''proximus'' meaning ''very ...
s to mathematical numerical values. Errors arise from a trade-off between efficiency (space and computation time) and precision, which is limited anyway, since (using common
floating-point arithmetic
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...
) only a finite amount of values can be represented exactly. The discrepancy between the exact mathematical value and the stored/computed value is called the
approximation error
The approximation error in a data value is the discrepancy between an exact value and some ''approximation'' to it. This error can be expressed as an absolute error (the numerical amount of the discrepancy) or as a relative error (the absolute er ...
.
Cybernetics
The word ''
cybernetics
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...
'' stems from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
Κυβερνήτης (''kybernētēs'', steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder – the same root as
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
). In applying corrections to the trajectory or course being steered cybernetics can be seen as the most general approach to error and its correction for the achievement of any goal. The term was suggested by
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...
to describe a new science of control and information in the animal and the machine. Wiener's early work was on
noise
Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...
.
The cybernetician
Gordon Pask
Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask (28 June 1928 – 29 March 1996) was an English author, inventor, educational theorist, cybernetician and psychologist who made contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and ed ...
held that the error that drives a
servomechanism
In control engineering a servomechanism, usually shortened to servo, is an automatic device that uses error-sensing negative feedback to correct the action of a mechanism. On displacement-controlled applications, it usually includes a built-in ...
can be seen as a difference between a pair of analogous concepts in a servomechanism: the current state and the goal state. Later he suggested error can also be seen as an innovation or a contradiction depending on the context and perspective of interacting (observer) participants. The founder of
management cybernetics
Management cybernetics is concerned with the application of cybernetics to management and organizations. "Management cybernetics" was first introduced by Stafford Beer in the late 1950s and introduces the various mechanisms of self-regulation appl ...
,
Stafford Beer
Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.
Bi ...
, applied these ideas most notably in his
viable system model
The viable system model (VSM) is a model of the organizational structure of any autonomous system capable of producing itself. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. On ...
.
Biology
In
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, an ''error'' is said to occur when perfect fidelity is lost in the copying of
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
. For example, in an asexually reproducing species, an error (or mutation) has occurred for each
DNA nucleotide
Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecules wi ...
that differs between the
child
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
and the
parent
A parent is a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the caretaker of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A ''biological parent'' is a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male t ...
. Many of these mutations can be harmful, but unlike other types of errors, some are neutral or even beneficial. Mutations are an important force driving
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
. Mutations that make organisms more adapted to their
environment
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
increase in the population through
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
as organisms with favorable mutations have more
offspring
In biology, offspring are the young creation of living organisms, produced either by a single organism or, in the case of sexual reproduction, two organisms. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This ca ...
.
Philately
In
philately
Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is poss ...
, an ''error'' refers to a
postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...
or piece of
postal stationery
A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related servi ...
that exhibits a printing or production mistake that differentiates it from a normal specimen or from the intended result. Examples are stamps printed in the wrong color or missing one or more colors, printed with a vignette
inverted in relation to its frame, produced without any perforations on one or more sides when the normal stamps are perforated, or printed on the wrong type of paper. Legitimate errors must always be produced and sold unintentionally. Such errors may or may not be scarce or rare. A ''
design error'' may refer to a mistake in the design of the stamp, such as a mislabeled subject, even if there are no printing or production mistakes.
Law
In
appellate review
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
, error typically refers to mistakes made by a
trial court
A trial court or court of first instance is a court having original jurisdiction, in which trials take place. Appeals from the decisions of trial courts are usually made by higher courts with the power of appellate review (appellate courts). Mos ...
or some other court of first instance in applying the law in a particular
legal case
A legal case is in a general sense a dispute between opposing parties which may be resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process. A legal case is typically based on either civil or criminal law. In most legal cases there are one or mor ...
. This may involve such mistakes as improper admission of
evidence
Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field.
In epistemology, evidenc ...
, inappropriate
instructions
Instruction or instructions may refer to:
Computing
* Instruction, one operation of a processor within a computer architecture instruction set
* Computer program, a collection of instructions
Music
* Instruction (band), a 2002 rock band from Ne ...
to the
jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartiality, impartial verdict (a Question of fact, finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty o ...
, or applying the wrong
standard of proof
In a legal dispute, one party has the burden of proof to show that they are correct, while the other party had no such burden and is presumed to be correct. The burden of proof requires a party to produce evidence to establish the truth of facts ...
.
Stock market
A stock market error is a stock market transaction that was done due to an error, due to human
failure
Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective (goal), objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of Success (concept), success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a parti ...
or
computer error
An error message is information displayed when an unforeseen occurs, usually on a computer or other device. On modern operating systems with graphical user interfaces, error messages are often displayed using dialog boxes. Error messages are used ...
s.
Governmental policy
Within United States government intelligence agencies, such as
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
agencies, ''error'' refers to ''intelligence error'', as previous assumptions that used to exist at a senior intelligence level within senior intelligence agencies, but has since been disproven, and is sometimes eventually listed as unclassified, and therefore more available to the
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
and
citizenry
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
of the United States. The
Freedom of information act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request:
* Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act
* ...
provides American citizenry with a means to read intelligence reports that were mired in error. Per United States Central Intelligence Agency's website (as of August, 2008) intelligence error is described as:
"Intelligence errors are factual inaccuracies in analysis resulting from poor or missing data; intelligence failure is systemic organizational surprise resulting from incorrect, missing, discarded, or inadequate hypotheses."
Numismatics
In
numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...
, an ''error'' refers to a
coin
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...
or
medal
A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...
that has a minting mistake, similar to errors found in philately. Because the U.S.
Bureau of the Mint keeps a careful eye on all potential errors, errors on U.S. coins are very few and usually very scarce. Examples of numismatic errors: extra metal attached to a coin, a clipped coin caused by the coin stamp machine stamping a second coin too early, double stamping of a coin. A coin that has been overdated, e.g. 1942/41, is also considered an error.
Linguistics
In
applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication rese ...
, an error is an unintended deviation from the immanent rules of a
language variety
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Ma ...
made by a
second language
A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
learner. Such errors result from the learner's lack of knowledge of the correct rules of the target language variety. A significant distinction is generally made between ''errors'' (systematic deviations) and ''mistakes'' (
speech performance errors) which are not treated the same from a linguistic viewpoint. The study of learners' errors has been the main area of investigation by linguists in the history of
second-language acquisition
Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning — otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific dis ...
research.
Medicine
A
medical error
A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care (" iatrogenesis"), whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior ...
is a preventable adverse effect of care ("iatrogenesis"), whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, infection, or other ailment.
The word ''error'' in medicine is used as a label for nearly all of the clinical incidents that harm patients. Medical errors are often described as
human error
Human error refers to something having been done that was " not intended by the actor; not desired by a set of rules or an external observer; or that led the task or system outside its acceptable limits".Senders, J.W. and Moray, N.P. (1991) Human ...
s in healthcare. Whether the label is a medical error or human error, one definition used in medicine says that it occurs when a
healthcare
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
provider chooses an inappropriate method of care, improperly executes an appropriate method of care, or reads the wrong
CT scan. It has been said that the definition should be the subject of more debate. For instance, studies of hand hygiene compliance of physicians in an ICU show that compliance varied from 19% to 85%.
The deaths that result from infections caught as a result of treatment providers improperly executing an appropriate method of care by not complying with known safety standards for hand hygiene are difficult to regard as innocent accidents or mistakes.
There are many types of medical error, from minor to major,
and causality is often poorly determined.
There are many taxonomies for classifying medical errors.
See also
*
Blooper
A blooper is a short clip from a film or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast or news report, usually in terms o ...
*
Error detection and correction
In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communi ...
*
Fallacy
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term in the Western intellectual tradition was intr ...
– Error in reasoning
*
Margin of error
The margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in the results of a survey. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that a poll result would reflect the result of a census of the ent ...
*
Nonconformity – Production quality terminology
*
Perfection
Perfection is a state, variously, of completeness, flawlessness, or supreme excellence.
The terminology, term is used to designate a range of diverse, if often kindred, concepts. These have historically been addressed in a number of discrete a ...
*
Trial and error
Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem-solving characterized by repeated, varied attempts which are continued until success, or until the practicer stops trying.
According to W.H. Thorpe, the term was devised by C. Lloyd Morgan (1 ...
References
External links
Errors contained in reference books – Internet Accuracy Project
{{Authority control
Human communication
Measurement