# Understanding Error Culture in Veterinary Medicine: A Survey Among Veterinary Support Staff Across German-Speaking Countries

## TL;DR

This study explores how veterinary support staff in German-speaking countries experience and handle errors in their work, finding that communication issues and workload are major factors.

## Contribution

The study provides new insights into error culture and management practices among veterinary support staff in German-speaking countries.

## Key findings

- Errors are most commonly linked to administrative tasks, communication, and animal handling.
- Time pressure, workload, and communication problems are the main contributing factors to errors.
- Most workplaces lack structured systems for error reporting and management.

## Abstract

Veterinary practices aim to provide safe care for animals, yet errors can still occur in everyday work. Understanding how these errors happen and how teams deal with them is important for improving patient safety. However, little is known about how veterinary support staff experience and handle errors in practice. In this study, more than 200 veterinary support staff from German-speaking countries completed an online survey. The aim was to explore where errors are most likely to occur, which factors contribute to them, and how teams deal with them. Participants most often linked errors to administrative tasks such as billing, communication within the team, and handling animals. Time pressure, heavy workload, and communication problems were reported as the most common contributing factors, reflecting common human factors that influence work performance. While many respondents said that errors are discussed openly, most workplaces lacked structured systems for reporting and reviewing them. The findings suggest that better communication, supportive teamwork, and structured ways of learning from errors could help improve patient safety in veterinary practice.

Errors are an unavoidable part of veterinary practice; however, little is known about how veterinary support staff perceive and deal with errors in their veterinary teams. This study examined perception of errors, contributing factors, and approaches to error management among veterinary support staff in German-speaking countries. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted, including 205 fully completed questionnaires. Reported errors were most often linked to tasks such as billing, team interaction, and handling and restraining animals. The most frequently reported contributing factors were time pressure, high workload, and communication problems. Most respondents reported that errors are openly spoken up about in everyday work (68%) and discussed within the team (76%). At the same time, perceptions of feeling safe to report an error varied: while 69% reported always or mostly feeling safe to speak up, 31% felt safe only sometimes, rarely or never. In addition, 16% of participants reported having deliberately not disclosed an error. According to 81% of respondents, no structured error reporting or management system was in place in their workplace. Overall, the findings show that error handling among veterinary support staff remains largely informal and individual, highlighting an important area for further research, improved reporting structures and training.