Martinsville, NJ (PRWEB) January 31, 2006
Have you ever identified a problem's cause as 'human error'? According to error reduction specialist, Filomena Sousa, CEO of Talsico International, you can successfully reduce re-occurrence of human errors if you use a methodology to categorize 'human errors' and a hierarchy of controls that ensures that you apply the most appropriate control for a given type of human error.
“We need to look at human errors scientifically”, explains Ms. Sousa. “We need to analyze and control them as we do other workplace risks. Lumping all human errors into one category prevents us from doing so. We must have a way of categorizing human errors that helps us identify characteristics of the type of error we are dealing with and that guides us to prevention strategies”.
The human error categories below, described further at Talsico's website, provide this framework:
Categories of Human Error:
1. Learning Gap
2. Memory Gap
According to Ms. Sousa, categorizing errors is not enough. Organizations need to understand more about the brain and the factors that contribute to each category of human error. This enables them to pinpoint the root cause and to reduce or eliminate future occurrences.
A pharmaceutical manufacturer had a high rate of documentation errors in their Line Clearance process, which is used to ensure there is no cross-contamination. Cross-contamination has major financial and legal implications.
The company had done extensive training and re-training on the clearance procedure. The errors continued. They tried imposing penalties on individuals. This had minimal effect. With an FDA audit imminent, they contacted Talsico.
Talsico analyzed the types of errors made. Most were Omission errors. Talsico's research shows that Omission errors in documentation are principally due to document design. Was it any wonder that re-training and 'punishing' were not working?
Talsico redesigned the documentation based on the way the human brain processes information yielding a 74% error reduction within two weeks.
Workplace Seminars for Error Reduction:
Talsico's seminars help leaders understand the principles behind human errors. Without this understanding organizations can spend enormous amounts of time and money and see little error reduction.
A global manufacturer's vice president told his peers that the reason he had been so forceful in asking them to attend was that “This is the most useful information I've received in 20 years of trying to reduce human errors”.
To learn more about Error Reduction visit Talsico's website or call Susan Lynn, at 732-356-5800.
Talsico has offices in the USA, Australia, Puerto Rico and South Africa.
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