Incident Reporting

Excerpt

Medical errors currently represent a serious public health issue, as they pose a severe threat to patient safety. The introduction of new clinical approaches, procedures, and laboratory techniques accompanied by increased bureaucracy in the life of a physician has resulted in tremendous challenges in his or her practice. Numerous studies over recent decades have shown an increased incidence of burnout syndrome and suicide rates in physicians and personnel of allied health care providers across several countries. Diagnostic errors in medicine are not infrequent, although our approach to these situations has changed notably from 40 years ago, as today there is a shift from placing blame upon an individual to identifying the cause of a medical error, as well as the application of policies to limit complications and prevent future such medical errors.