The root causes of medical malpractice claims are deeper and closer to home than most in the medical community care to admit. The University of Michigan Health System’s experience suggests that a response by the medical community more directly aimed at what drives patients to call lawyers would effectively reduce claims, without compromising meritorious defenses. More importantly, honest assessments of medical care give rise to clinical improvements that reduce patient injuries. Using a true case example, this article compares the traditional approach to claims with what is being done at the University of Michigan. The case example illustrates how an honest, principle-driven approach to claims is better for all those involved—the patient, the healthcare providers, the institution, future patients, and even the lawyers.

Incident reporting systems (IRS) are used to identify medical errors in order to learn from mistakes and improve patient safety in hospitals. However, IRS contain only a small fraction of occurring incidents. A more comprehensive overview of medical error in hospitals may be obtained by combining information from multiple sources. The WHO has developed the International Classification for Patient Safety (ICPS) in order to enable comparison of incident reports from different sources and institutions. Incident reports collected from IRS, patient complaints and retrospective chart review in an academic acute care hospital were classified using the ICPS. In conclusion, IRS do not capture all incidents in hospitals and should be combined with complementary information about diagnostic error and delayed treatment from patient complaints and retrospective chart review. Since incidents that are not recorded in IRS do not lead to remedial and preventive action in response to IRS reports, healthcare centres that have access to different incident detection methods should harness information from all sources to improve patient safety.

The nature and consequences of patient and family emotional harm stemming from preventable medical error, such as losing a loved one or surviving serious medical injury, is poorly understood. Patients and families, clinicians, social scientists, lawyers, and foundation/policy leaders were brought together to establish research priorities for this issue during a one-day conference. They discussed pertinent issues, patient and family experiences after serious harmful events, including profound isolation, psychological distress, damaging aspects of medical culture, health care aversion, and negative effects on communities. The group also created a strategy for overcoming research barriers and actionable “Do Now” approaches to improve the patient and family experience while research is ongoing.

The Roadmap for Patient and Family Engagement in Healthcare Practice and Research was created as a call to action for anyone interested in advancing work related to patient and family engagement. It includes eight change strategies and five simple actions to increase patient and family involvement in the improvement and implementation of extraordinary healthcare.

This article discusses the negative connotations that surround the term “second victim,” which is used to describe healthcare providers following their involvement in a adverse medical incident. Authors of this article persuade people to stop using this term, since it discourages healthcare providers from taking responsibility for their actions, as well as undermines the patient’s feelings and situation.

This article discusses the prevalence of disruptive behavior in the healthcare setting, which is defined as any act that influences a group’s intended outcome. Disruptive behavior often takes the form of angry outbursts and passive aggressive actions, especially in extremely stressful environments, such as emergency rooms. This behavior is often detrimental to the culture of safety and quality healthcare, as well as increases the risk of lawsuits. To combat disruptive behavior, five principles are are offered as guides to promoting professionalism and professional accountability in support of quality team-oriented care, patient safety and, if necessary, legal defense if disruptive colleagues challenge disciplinary interventions. 

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the lead Federal agency charged with improving the safety and quality of America’s health care system. AHRQ develops the knowledge, tools, and data needed to improve the health care system and help Americans, health care professionals, and policymakers make informed health decisions.

Incident reporting is the most common method used to promote patient safety in healthcare settings. This method requires those involved in the event go complete an incident form, which is a detailed summary of the occurrence. There are key components that make incident reporting systems effective and successful. To be successful, the incidence form should be submitted in a timely manner and be disseminated among an array of healthcare professionals.

Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation describes what federally funded programs have accomplished in understanding medical errors and implementing programs to improve patient safety over the last five years. This compendium is sponsored jointly by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Department of Defense (DoD)-Health Affairs. The 140 articles in the 4-volume set cover a wide range of research paradigms, clinical settings, and patient populations. Where the research is complete, the findings are presented; where the research is still in process, the articles report on its progress. In addition to articles with a research and methodological focus, the compendium includes articles that address implementation issues or present useful tools and products that can be used to improve patient safety.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHQR) developed the CANDOR (Communication and Optimal Resolution) Event Checklist, which is a guide to be used by the CANDOR team after an adverse event occurred in the healthcare setting. The checklist includes effective ways of reporting, assessing, investigating, and analyzing the adverse event to decrease the likelihood of future incidents occurring, as well as improving the overall quality of patient care and safety.

The CANDOR Event Review Report Template is a guide used to analyze and investigate barriers that contributed to an adverse health event. Barriers include poor communication behaviors, unsafe physical environment, inadequate care, and equipment device failure. This template also includes a guide to assess who was responsible for the adverse event, and ways to develop solutions for it so it.

The Communication and Optimal Resolution (CANDOR) process is used  by health care institutions and practitioners to respond in a timely, thorough, and just way when unexpected events cause patient harm. The CANDOR toolkit contains eight different modules, which contain PowerPoint slides with facilitator notes, tools, resources, or videos. Examples of modules include “Care for the Caregiver” and “Organizational Learning and Stability.” These modules focus on effective ways to reduce patient harm and increase overall healthcare quality and safety through family and patient engagement, as well as specific ways to decrease the risk of future adverse outcomes.

The Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety was developed by the for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to encourage patient and family involvement in healthcare quality and safety. This guide includes four key methods as follows:

• Encourage patients and family members to participate as advisers.
• Promote better communication among patients, family members, and health care professionals from the point of admission.
• Implement safe continuity of care by keeping the patient and family informed through nurse bedside change-of-shift reports.
• Engage patients and families in discharge planning throughout the hospital stay.

Read how the AMA pursues medical liability laws on the state level to reshape the current medical liability system to better serve both physicians and patients.

“Annie’s Story” is an example of how healthcare organizations seeking high reliability embrace a just culture in all they do. This includes a system’s approach to analyzing near misses and harm events—looking to analyze events without the knee-jerk blame and shame approach of old. This video specifically focused on Nurse Andrea’s personal experience with an adverse health event with a patient who underwent a hypoglycemic emergency due to a misreading of a glucometer. The video then details the steps she and the hospital took to prevent future adverse health events, as well as other ways to increase overall patient safety and quality.

The authors discuss trends in the medical malpractice liability insurance market, consider the impacts COVID-19 has had, and suggest using a CRP approach during the pandemic to lessen the consequences of a hardening insurance market.

The Apology and Disclosure Grand Rounds NWH incorporates a video simulated error and a presentation about “When Things Go Wrong”. The presentation discusses disclosure coaching & peer support, the emotional impact of errors on clinicians, and principles for transparent & compassionate disclosure and apology.

39 states have apology laws, with over a third applying to healthcare or other contexts. After over a decade of experience with apology laws, the authors explore whether apology laws reduce malpractice liability risk and why, and whether there is a reason to have them.

Background
Many health care organizations want to improve their responses to patients who suffer medical injuries. Their ability to understand how well they meet patients’ needs is limited by the lack of suitable instruments for assessing injured patients’ experiences.
Methods
This study aimed to generate items for a patient experience questionnaire that medical facilities can use to assess how well resolution met patients’ needs. The Medical Injury Reconciliation Experiences Survey (MIRES) was based on findings from previous studies of New Zealand and American patients’ experiences of non-litigation resolution of medical injuries. The researchers performed a content analysis of 24 transcripts from a stratified random sample of 92 interviews from the prior studies. Themes were extracted to develop a draft questionnaire, which was revised following feedback from experts. Cognitive debriefing interviews were conducted with 24 New Zealand and American injured patients.
Results
There were 40 items in the following domains: perceptions of communications with health care providers after the injury (15 items), perceptions of remedial gestures (11 items), indicia of the patient’s overall satisfaction with the reconciliation process (4 items), the nature and impacts of the injury (5 items), and patients’ characteristics (5 items). Participants’ feedback about the questionnaire was predominantly positive. Their suggestions led to 37 revisions.
Conclusion
The MIRES was comprehensible and acceptable to this group of post-injury patients. While further testing is desirable, the MIRES offers promise as a practicable approach that health care organizations can use to assess how well their reconciliation processes met patients’ needs.

Medical errors are associated with significant emotional, financial, physical and sociobehavioural impacts including reduced trust and willingness to seek healthcare. These impacts can last for years. The study sought to understand whether greater open communication is associated with reduced emotional impacts and decreased avoidance of doctors/facilities involved in the error.

Background: The emotional impact of medical errors on patients may be long-lasting. Factors associated with prolonged emotional impacts are poorly understood.

Methods: The authors conducted a subanalysis of a 2017 survey (response rate 36.8% [2,536/6,891]) of US adults to assess emotional impact of medical error. Patients reporting a medical error were included if the error occurred ≥ 1 year prior. Duration of emotional impact was categorized into no/short-term impact (impact lasting < 1 month), prolonged impact (> 1 month), and especially prolonged impact (> 1 year). Based on their reported experience with communication about the error, patients’ experience was categorized as consistent with national disclosure guidelines, contrary to guidelines, mixed, or neither. Multinomial regression was used to examine associations between patient factors, event characteristics, and organizational communication with prolonged emotional impact (> 1 month, > 1 year).

Results: Of all survey respondents, 17.8% (451/2,536) reported an error occurring ≥ 1 year prior. Of these, 51.2% (231/451) reported prolonged/especially prolonged emotional impact (30.8% prolonged, 20.4% especially prolonged). Factors associated with prolonged emotional impact included female gender (adjusted odds ratio 2.1 [95% confidence interval 1.5–2.9]); low socioeconomic status (SES; 1.7 [1.1–2.7]); physical impact (7.3 [4.3–12.3]); no organizational disclosure and no patient/family error reporting (1.5 [1.03–2.3]); communication contrary to guidelines (4.0 [2.1–7.5]); and mixed communication (2.2 [1.3–3.7]). The same factors were significantly associated with especially prolonged emotional impact (female, 1.7 [1.2–2.5]; low SES, 2.2 [1.3–3.6]; physical impact, 6.8 [3.8–12.5]; no disclosure/reporting, 1.9 [1.2–3.2]; communication contrary to guidelines, 4.6 [2.2–9.4]; mixed communication, 2.1 [1.1–3.9]).

Conclusion: Prolonged emotional impact affected more than half of Americans self-reporting a medical error. Organizational failure to communicate according to disclosure guidelines after patient-perceived errors may exacerbate harm, particularly for patients at risk of health care disparities.

This article explains the challenge of balancing accountability and a “no blame” model in healthcare systems when promoting patient safety. Accountability is defined as taking responsibility for one’s actions. In this article, it is taking responsibility for malpractice that increases patient harm. the “no blame” model is defined as not accusing a single entity for any healthcare misconduct. It is important for healthcare systems to embody both taking responsibility for healthcare malpractices as well as the “no blame” model to effectively promote patient safety and quality and reduce adverse health events.

Resources for patients and families in need of information and support after a medical error or adverse medical event.

Resources for clinicians and staff looking for data and information about the importance of support after adverse medical events, or for administrators that are interested in implementing a peer support program at their institution.

Timothy McDonald, MD, JD, discusses factors that can make already difficult conversations with patients and their loved ones after harm events even more challenging and complex and offers recommendations to mitigate these challenges.

Jo Shapiro, MD, FACS, talked about how peer support programs can both help alleviate some negative emotional impact of medical errors on the involved clinicians and in progression towards a culture of psychological safety in organizations.

The Collaborative for Accountability and Improvement’s CRP Attorney Alliance has developed a certification webinar for attorneys.

CRPs are the clear way of the future in terms of response following patient harm. Competency in this area is quickly becoming fundamental for all attorneys involved in the field of medical malpractice, including those working within the plaintiff and defense bars, in-house counsel/risk management, and third-party payors.

Jackie Ewuoso, MPH, PMP is a Senior Program Manager at the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety where she manages peer support programs and other patient safety initiatives. She has several years of experience in community health addressing social determinants of health and working in chronic disease prevention. Before coming to the Betsy Lehman Center, Jackie was a public health prevention specialist at the Worcester Division of Public Health and the Central Massachusetts Public Health Alliance. In this position, she managed community health grants aimed at addressing chronic diseases by increasing access to healthy food and opportunities for physical activity. She coordinated projects and initiatives focused on policy, systems, and environmental change as a way to increase healthy eating and active living in the city of Worcester and six surrounding towns. Jackie holds a Master’s in Public Health from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Ill

Linda Kenney, the Director of Peer Support Programs at the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety, has had a personal experience with a near-fatal medical event many years ago. Linda identified the need for support services in cases of adverse medical events and outlined an agenda for change. For more than twenty years, she has been encouraging organizations to tackle the challenges that impair effective communication, apology, and support programs for patients, families, and clinicians following medical errors and unanticipated outcomes. Linda serves as a patient representative on numerous task forces and is on the board of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors.

Webinar Date: January 21, 2021

Wesley R. Butler discusses the role of confidentiality and privilege within the context of Communication and Resolution Programs.

Presenter: Wesley R. Butler is an attorney at Barnett Benvenuti & Butler PLLC in Lexington Kentucky who focuses on advising health care providers on regulatory matters that implicate safety, quality, and reimbursement.

Objectives: 

• Outline the elements of typical confidentiality and privilege interests in patient safety and quality analyses, and explore the public policies that support such interests
• Outline the fundamental components of common CRP processes in health care, and explore the public policies and ethical considerations that support CRPs for responding to patient harm events
• Analyze the interplay between CRPs and confidentiality and privilege interests to identify complementary and divergent points
• Conclude with practical suggestions to illustrate that health care providers can fully implement CRP processes while respecting the boundaries of confidentiality and privilege and,  ultimately, gain the benefits that both perspectives offer

Webinar Date: April 26, 2022

Moderator

• Caitlin Harrington. MD, JD

Speaker Panel

• Jeffrey N. Catalano, JD
• Jeff Goldenberg, MD
• Naomi Kirtner
• Jo Shapiro, MD, FACS