The confused epistemology of a safety incident, are we in the realm of justified belief or opinion?

Abstract

The global patient safety movement have seen a surge of research over the past 20 years, with the emergence of primarily two schools of thought regarding safety management, Safety-1 and Safety-2. A simplified description of these views would state that Safety-1 focuses on the absence of adverse outcomes (accidents, incidents, harm), while Safety-2 focuses on the presence of adaptive capacity to ensure that things go right under varying conditions. These contrasting (and complimentary) views introduces several underlying epistemological assumptions concerning causality, determinism, and the notion that complex processes can be decomposed into discrete elements. Assumptions that warrant critical examination and further scientific deliberation.