Anesthesia Department Management: When Medical Errors Happen
Author : Doc Clemens
When Medical Errors Happen, Executives Shouldn't Hide
When a provider makes a tragic mistake that harms a patient, most healthcare organization executives and their staffs are told to hide. If they say anything, they will be more likely to be sued, they think. They don't acknowledge, disclose, or apologize. Instead, they repeat phrases like, "It will blow over," "It wasn't our fault," or "No one will find out." They advise care teams to act defensively, to avoid saying anything that will expose them "to the media." They think "I'll look bad," and tell everyone "I'm unavailable." Or "Our attorneys will handle it." But these phrases, attitudes, and behaviors are just the ones that will make litigation more likely and prolonged, with potentially higher damages and more animosity, says James Conway, senior vice president for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. And these responses can add more anxiety and suffering to the affected patients and their families. Instead of promptly reaching out to empathize and console with food, housing, money, and social support for those whose lives are irreversibly altered, hospital executives and staff often take a "willful blindness" posture. "If you know what happened, and there's no debate about what happened, how do you work with the family on a rapid case resolution including compensation?" Conway said in an interview. "Now there are practical issues. A family member has to stay in town, so are you helping them with hotel bills and meals? What about transportation? How do you send the message, 'We're there for you?' You need to remove any barriers associated with this unanticipated outcome," he adds.
Based on his travels around the country speaking with hospital executives, staff, and victims of medical errors, Conway estimates that only about 25% of hospitals have any kind of integrated response or crisis management plan, or a rapid compensation or reimbursement plan to follow in the aftermath. Hospitals and healthcare organizations have a choice. They can "continue to go into defensive, reactive, survival mode or to go into proactive, learning, developmental mode," the report says.
Conway elaborates: Quite often, when he has spoken with families, loved ones, and patients who were harmed by a hospital adverse event, "they tell us that the reason they sued was because of the way they were treated, and the distance that developed in the aftermath of that adverse event."
"What we're seeing around the country is that organizations get so consumed by this discussion about whether or not [the tragic result] was preventable, and the family is not being supported, and they're getting angrier and angrier and angrier. Then all of a sudden you have someone who is dramatically more likely to sue."