What Does a Patient Want After a Medical Error?

Of course, a patient would prefer that a medical error NEVER happens. Thus, most people want the hospital they attend to have a great performance improvement program that proactively PREVENTS errors from occurring. However, even with the best programs, an error is still possible (even if it is highly unlikely).

A study in the JAMA Internal Medicine says that patients and their families want physicians and hospitals to communicate with them to explain what the facility is doing to prevent similar future incidents. “We are going to try harder” is not enough. They want real root cause analysis with effective corrective actions.

The study observed, “Patients and families strongly desired to know what the hospital did to prevent recurrences of the event, but 24 of 30 reported receiving no information about safety improvement efforts.”

So what do patients want?

• Adequate compensation
• Friendly communication
• To be heard by the physician and the hospital.
• How the hospital/physician would prevent future errors

If you don’t have advanced root cause analysis you can’t meet the patient’s expectation.

Maybe it is time to learn about TapRooT® and start your organization’s journey to world-class root cause analysis and performance improvement?