Two definitions for the same term from the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care* leading to different scenario assignments
| Definition | Scenario | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | C | D | |
| Bold text = keywords within the definition upon which the scenario assignment decisions were made. | ||||
| *Definition 1 in each case is from the First National Report on Patient Safety (2001) and definition 2 is from the Second National Report on Patient Safety: Improving Medication Safety (2002). | ||||
| “Side effect” (1): | √ | × | × | × |
| An effect, other than that intended, produced by an agent in absence of error. | ||||
| “Side effect” (2): | √ | √ | × | × |
| Any unintended effect of a medicine occurring at doses normally used in people which is related to the pharmacological properties of the drug. | ||||
| “Error” (1): | × | √ | √ | × |
| Failure to complete an action as intended, or the wrong use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim. Error may occur by doing the wrong thing (commission) or by failing to do the right thing (omission). | ||||
| “Error” (2): | × | √ | √ | √ |
| Failure in the (drug) treatment process that leads to, or has the potential to lead to, harm to the patient and includes an act of omission or commission. | ||||