Identification and Evaluation of Nursing Errors in Kowsar Hospital by SHERPA

Medical errors, including human errors, are one of the most important and sensitive issues in the health system. Human errors can endanger patients’ life during health service provision. Therefore, healthcare workers should ensure the safety by reducing human errors. This study aimed to identify and evaluate human errors among nurses working at an Iranian Hospital.

This is a cross-sectional study which was carried out using SHERPA method in 2018. After explaining the purpose of the study, data were collected by observation and interview. Using the hierarchical analysis method, tasks and subtasks were determined, and finally, the worksheet on SHERPA was completed and analyzed.

Thirty-two tasks covering 252 subtasks related to the nursing profession were investigated, of which 252 errors were detected. Identified errors included errors of action, revision, retrieval, communication, and selection which were responsible for 60, 23, 3, 12, and 2 percent of errors, respectively. In terms of the level of error risk, 16 were unacceptable, 96 were undesirable, 107 were acceptable, which need revision, and 33 were acceptable with no need for revision.

Nurses' errors are more action errors because of the nature of their work, so hospital authorities for safety and prevention should prioritize these errors.