Error-tolerant culture

The investigators work with clients to design and implement customized solutions based on their company strategies, structure and culture to enhance performance and optimize costs. A fundamental concept of ICAM is the acceptance of the inevitability of human error. As stated by Reason (2000), an organization carmot change the human condition, but they can change the conditions imder which humans work, thereby making the system more error tolerant. 

Second, in regard to scientific matters, the off-mainstream disciplines make useful scientific or commonsense contributions that reflect classifications and concepts of ancient doctrines, but tested over thousands of years. The trial and error testing that have elapsed are an excellent gold-prospector s sieve, or clinical trial, for what is actually useful. Biopharmaceutical companies have been founded to explore ancient and alternative medicines on that very assumption. What is left may nonetheless have analogies with modern concepts if we allow for the cultural differences and the way that available knowledge was represented at the time. So it would not be unfair to say that alternative and mystical medicine are languages that can be translated into mainstream medicine of the future, only if we understand the keys and we are tolerant about using them. 

All clinicians recognize the inevitability (though perhaps not the frequency) of error. However this seldom carries over into open recognition and discussion. There is therefore a curious, and in some ways paradoxical, dash of beliefs. On the one hand we have an enterprise fraught with imcertainty, where knowledge is inadequate and errors are boimd to occur. On the other hand those working in this environment foster a culture of perfection, in which errors are not tolerated, in which a strong sense of personal responsibility both for errors... 

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