World journal of surgery
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World journal of surgery · Aug 2003
ReviewPatient safety in surgery: error detection and prevention.
Error in medicine is becoming a well recognized phenomenon. The U. S. ⋯ Retrospective studies and a few prospective studies are shedding more light on this challenging problem. Strategies to reduce error and increase patient safety have not been widely developed or embraced by surgeons for a variety of reasons. We provide a review on patient safety aimed at surgeons that includes definitions, incidence of errors including those in the surgical literature, causes of error, methods of error detection, and strategies to minimize errors and maximize patient safety.