Safety Net

During the CRICO Surgical Summit in Boston, presenters and attendees explored the complexity of disclosure and apology. Panelist Philip Murray shared his perspective from 30 years as an active trial lawyer, and explained his support for open disclosure of adverse events—with some caveats.

A Q and A with Jack Mc Carthy, president of Harvard's self-insurance medical malpractice company about guidelines, simulators, and the future of patient safety.

New research underscores the need, effectiveness of formalizing sign-out and discharge summary processes.

Boston attorney Ted Mahoney tells obstetricians that a few notes about evaluating the pelvis before and during labor, and describing shoulder dystocia maneuvers will improve their chances if a lawsuit results from Erb's Palsy.

Part 3 of an address by best-selling author and Harvard Professor of Medicine Jerome Groopman to a patient safety symposium in Cambridge about the cognitive processes that lead physicians to make an incorrect diagnosis. Part 1 reviewed the ways physicians seek and process information on their way to making correct and incorrect diagnoses. Part 2 involved how how thinking errors occur. Part 3 looks at how to apply this knowledge to improving diagnoses in medical practice.

Best-selling author and Harvard Professor of Medicine Jerome Groopman speaks to a patient safety symposium in Cambridge about the cognitive processes that lead physicians to make an incorrect diagnosis. Part 1 reviewed the ways physicians seek and process information on their way to making correct and incorrect diagnoses. Part 3 will look at how to apply this knowledge to improving diagnoses in medical practice.

Best-selling author and Harvard Professor of Medicine Jerome Groopman speaks to a patient safety symposium in Cambridge about the ways physicians seek and process information on their way to making correct and incorrect diagnoses. Subsequent segments Part II and Part III will review how thinking errors occur, and how to apply this knowledge to improving diagnoses in medical practice.

When they became patients, these five physicians found that communication, attention to detail, and willingness to learn from error were all missing sometimes.

Even the best care in medicine can be undermined when responsibility for the patient is transferred from one provider to the next. Hand-offs—both within the hospital and upon discharge—are the subject of increasing attention by malpractice insurers and patient safety researchers.

The idea is how do you take that big wedge of paper and divide it to the appropriate provider and then how do you stratify what is urgent and what is not urgent?