The folly of rewarding silence while hoping for open reporting of adverse medical events--how to realign the rewards.
The recent release under the Official Information Act (OIA) of Capital and Coast District Health Board's (CandC DHB) Serious and Sentinel Event Report, the subsequent national report, and the commitment to fund a New Zealand-wide incident reporting system raise a number of important issues. This paper discusses the barriers to incident reporting and the folly of attempting to reward system improvements while the barriers are still in place. Suggestions are also made to help guide the development of appropriate systems which will eliminate barriers and realign the rewards.
Chamberlain
Nick
N
Medicine, Surgery, Critical Care and Diagnostics, Northland District Health Board, Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand. nick.chamberlain@northlanddhb.org.nz
D016907:Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000458:organization & administration; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D019221:Mandatory Reporting; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology