Failure and Success: Using the Morbidity & Mortality Process in a Social Service Setting

Abstract

Since the early 20th century, medical institutions have examined their failures through the convocation of regularly scheduled morbidity and mortality conferences. The purpose of these conferences has been to institutionalize learning from errors in a blame-free environment. The current paper extends the application of the morbidity and mortality conference to an administrative setting, specifically as an organizational learning and assessment tool for confronting failure in social service or educational settings. The underlying argument is that examining failures in organizations can lead to fundamental insights about the value added by the agencies' programs.