Institutional Responses to Medical Mistakes: Ethical and Legal Perspectives

, Health care institutions must decide whether to inform the patient of a medical error. The barriers to disclosure are an aversion to admitting errors, a concern about implicating other practitioners, and a fear of lawsuits and liability. However, admission of medical errors is the ethical thing to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Thurman, Andy (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press 2001
In: Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal
Year: 2001, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Pages: 147-156
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:, Health care institutions must decide whether to inform the patient of a medical error. The barriers to disclosure are an aversion to admitting errors, a concern about implicating other practitioners, and a fear of lawsuits and liability. However, admission of medical errors is the ethical thing to do and may be required by law. When examined, the barriers to such disclosures have little merit, and, in fact, lawsuits and liability may actually be reduced by informing the patient of medical errors. Therefore, a health care institution should implement a written policy providing for disclosure of medical errors, using a process such as that outlined in the article.
ISSN:1086-3249
Contains:Enthalten in: Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1353/ken.2001.0018