National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention index for categorizing medication errors

Category A	Circumstances or events that have the capacity to cause error
Category B	An error occurred but the error did not reach the patient (an ‘error of omission’ does reach the patient)
Category C	An error occurred that reached the patient but did not cause patient harm
Category D	An error occurred that reached the patient and required monitoring to confirm that it resulted in no harm to the patient and/or required intervention to preclude harm
Category E	An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in temporary harm to the patient and required intervention
Category F	An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in temporary harm to the patient and required initial or prolonged hospitalization
Category G	An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in permanent patient harm
Category H	An error occurred that required intervention necessary to sustain life
Category I	An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in the patient’s death

Copyright 2001 National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention. All rights reserved (16)