Swiss Cheese Model

The Swiss Cheese Model explains how accidents or errors happen in complex systems, like healthcare or aviation. It suggests that multiple layers of defense (like safety protocols or checks) act as barriers to prevent mistakes. Each layer has holes or weaknesses, but when these holes temporarily line up—like holes in slices of Swiss cheese—an error can pass through all layers and cause an incident. The model highlights the importance of multiple safeguards and the need to identify and fix vulnerabilities in each layer to improve overall safety.