title: Event reporting: the value of a nonpunitive approach.
abstract: This article will discuss why patient safety has been so hard to achieve due to long standing beliefs that when errors occur individuals must be blamed or punished. It will offer suggestions as to how a culture of learning can be advanced by fostering a different approach to medical errors and how reporting systems and an analytic process that always identifies root causes of problems can help physicians reduce harm to patients and ultimately malpractice risk.
authors.affiliation: Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chicago, Illinois, USA. barbara.youngberg@gmail.com
authors.forename: Barbara J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Youngberg
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006176:Gynecology / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008318:Malpractice; D019221:Mandatory Reporting; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology*; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000592:standards*; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012307:Risk Factors; D017751:Safety Management