Medical error reporting in America: a changing landscape.
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.
Karlsen
Kristine A
KA
University of Alaska Anchorage, School of Nursing, Anchorage, USA.
Hendrix
Thomas J
TJ
O'Malley
Maureen
M
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