Responding to Adverse Events

Since the turn of this century, medical error, patient safety and raising malpractice claims have increasingly taken center stage in healthcare. Patients, politicians, policy makers and health professionals grapple with the striking prevalence and consequences of medical error, whether a “near miss” or resulting in patient injury. Fears of malpractice liability, difficulties in communicating bad news, and confusion about causation and responsibility have long impeded comprehensive and bold initiatives designed to change the patient, family and clinician experience following a medical error. When things go wrong, our obligation becomes two-fold: to intensify our commitment to care for the patient harmed, and to change our systems to prevent future error. 2 Ethics CPD point has been allocated.