title: Medical error reporting in America: a changing landscape.
abstract: Should the United States require mandatory reporting of medical errors within the health care system? Many barriers to medical error reporting currently exist and have made it difficult to establish a nationwide reporting system. As such, individual states have begun to address this issue one state at a time. This article reviews the barriers to nationwide reporting, provides a brief historical perspective on quality initiatives including medical error reporting, examines what the individual states have initiated, and considers these implications from a nursing perspective. Finally, the hands of "big money" stakeholders are presented and considered throughout the entire discussion.
authors.affiliation: University of Alaska Anchorage, School of Nursing, Anchorage, USA.
authors.forename: Kristine A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Karlsen
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Hendrix
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Malley
mesh_terms: D006739:Hospital Administration; D006801:Humans; D019221:Mandatory Reporting; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D011057:Politics; D017751:Safety Management / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014481:United States