The Three Victims of Medical Errors:
How Supporting the Second Can Help the Third and the First
Approximately one in every five hospital inpatients will be the victim of a serious medical error, and these first victims have rightly been the primary focus of patient safety improvement efforts.
Susan D. Scott, PhD, RN, CPPS, FAAN
Manager of Patient Safety and Risk Management
University of Missouri (MU) Health Care System
Paul Bricker, RPh, MBA
Senior Solutions Architect
Riskonnect
Many providers involved in these errors also suffer serious effects, including emotional trauma, career changes, incarceration and suicide. If left unsupported by their institutions, these second victims can also have serious negative effects on the overall patient safety culture of the provider organization, which in some ways can even be considered to be a third victim of the error. A poor patient safety culture has been shown to negatively impact institutional efforts to improve patient safety, from voluntarily self-reporting errors to compliance with safety and quality improvement protocols, which can then lead to increases in the numbers of first victims of error.
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