Medical Errors

According to a national poll conducted by the National Patient Safety Foundation:

• Forty-two percent of respondents had been affected by a medical error, either personally or through a friend or relative.

• Thirty-two percent of the respondents indicated that the error had a permanent negative effect on the patient's health.

The patient safety debate seems to revolve around errors. No one asks darker questions. A great deal of attention is spent making sure that feathers are not ruffled. Reputations must be protected. Operators must not be blamed. Is the assumption that making people feel safe from blame or retribution will cause them to behave better?

It is great for people to be working so hard to find the causes of errors. But can we really expect to make progress in eliminating errors in an arena where we cannot even discover, investigate or punish criminal activity? However rare crime might be in medicine (and there is no legitimate reason to believe it is any less rare there than in the population in general), having systems in place that can address unfriendly practices, including crimes against patients, is the rock bottom foundation of patient safety.

When hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, orderlies and all the other personnel in healthcare will not even report drunken and/or libidinous and/or criminal behavior in healthcare (see loyalty), even when lives are lost or ruined as a result, can they be reliable reporters of anything else?

I applaud all efforts to reduce errors and create a culture of safety, but fundamental problems are being ignored that cannot be ignored if progress is to be made.

Home | Table of Contents | It's a Path
Silence versus Patient Safety
Loyalty versus Patient Safety
The White Wall of Silence versus Patient Safety
Blacklisting Patients
Freedom of Speech for Patients
Medical Complaints - How to

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It's a path

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Revised August 18, 2008