One Boston hospital recently made headlines by doing something almost completely unheard of in the medical community. The hospital began publishing a monthly employee newsletter, openly discussing medical errors made by staff members and telling the stories of these cases from the patient’s perspective.
The goal of the newsletter is to help employees understand the significant impact these medical errors have on patients and the hospital, and to encourage discussion among the staff about possible solutions to the problems. In addition, the hospital administration wants to prevent mistakes from being repeated.
This type of openness is extremely rare in healthcare, for many reasons. Primarily though, employees and their employers fear the consequences of publically reporting medical errors. However, this silence is costly in the following ways:
- Two-way communication between staff members and administration may be lacking. While medical mistakes may be reported, employees rarely learn about changes they can make to prevent the error from recurring.
- Statistics are not personal. When medical staff learns about actual patient experiences, medical mistakes become more real.
- When hospital staff members do not report medical errors because they fear punishment, needed changes to hospital policies, procedures, and patient care do not happen.
If you, or someone you love, were the victim of a medical error and suffered severe injuries as a result, you may be entitled to a cash settlement. Only an experienced Chicago medical malpractice attorney, like those at Lane Brown can help determine if you were a victim of medical negligence. Call our office today at 312-332-1400 to schedule your free consultation. We are standing by to help.
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