Toward a Conceptualization of Human Error in Teletherapy

The present study, sponsored by the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is the first part of a series of human factors evaluations for identifying the root causes of human error in the practice of radiation oncology therapy or teletherapy. The paper introduces a general framework for incorporating the major tasks of the study and for understanding the broad array of factors and their relationships underlying human error in the teletherapeutic setting.