How does the law recognize and deal with medical errors?

Alan Merry

Commentary

How does the law recognize and deal with medical errors?

September 2, 2009

Merry A. J R Soc Med. 2009;102(7):265-71.

View more articles from the same authors.

Using an example from aviation, this article describes medical errors in the context of the law and considers whether legal response affects safety.

PubMed citation

Available at

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

Medication errors—new approaches to prevention.

May 25, 2011

Patient safety in an interprofessional learning environment.

May 4, 2005

Improving the quality and safety of patient care in cardiac anesthesia.

December 10, 2014

Error, blame, and the law in health care—an antipodean perspective.

March 6, 2005

The contribution of labelling to safe medication administration in anaesthetic practice.

June 15, 2011

Fake and expired medications in simulation-based education: an underappreciated risk to patient safety.

March 23, 2016

Quality improvement in healthcare in New Zealand. Part 2: are our patients safe--and what are we doing about it?

August 16, 2006

Criminalisation of unintentional error in healthcare in the UK: a perspective from New Zealand.

April 24, 2019

A 'paperless' wall-mounted surgical safety checklist with migrated leadership can improve compliance and team engagement.

January 27, 2016

Anaesthetic drug administration as a potential contributor to healthcare-associated infections: a prospective simulation-based evaluation of aseptic techniques in the administration of anaesthetic drugs.

August 15, 2012

Sustainability and long-term effectiveness of the WHO surgical safety checklist combined with pulse oximetry in a resource-limited setting: two-year update from Moldova.

April 8, 2015

Multimodal system designed to reduce errors in recording and administration of drugs in anaesthesia: prospective randomised clinical evaluation.

October 5, 2011

A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population.

January 21, 2009

World Health Organization-World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WHO-WFSA) International Standards for a Safe Practice of Anesthesia.

May 23, 2018

We asked the experts: the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist and the COVID-19 pandemic: recommendations for content and implementation adaptations.

March 17, 2021

Surgical teams' attitudes about surgical safety and the surgical safety checklist at 10 years: a multinational survey.

November 17, 2021

A tragic death: a time to blame or a time to learn?

March 6, 2005

Towards safer, better healthcare: harnessing the natural properties of complex sociotechnical systems.

March 4, 2009

A new infusion syringe label system designed to reduce task complexity during drug preparation.

June 27, 2007

Patient complaints about hospital services: applying a complaint taxonomy to analyse and respond to complaints.

June 8, 2016

Anaesthetists' management of oxygen pipeline failure: room for improvement.

January 31, 2007

Using Medical Emergency Teams to detect preventable adverse events.

September 9, 2009

Implementation of a mock root cause analysis to provide simulated patient safety training.

December 20, 2017

Direct observation of depression screening: identifying diagnostic error and improving accuracy through unannounced standardized patients.

May 1, 2020

The impact of trained assistance on error rates in anaesthesia: a simulation-based randomised controlled trial.

February 25, 2009

Using the medication error prioritization system to improve patient safety.

March 2, 2016

The impact of team processes on psychiatric case management.

October 24, 2007

A common body of care: the ethics and politics of teamwork in the operating theater are inseparable.

July 19, 2006

The missing evidence: a systematic review of patients' experiences of adverse events in health care.

October 28, 2015

The problem with the '5 whys.'

September 14, 2016

Maintaining safety in the dialysis facility.

May 27, 2015

Patient safety: this is public health.

August 20, 2014

Burnout and sources of stress among health care risk managers and patient safety personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic: a pilot study.

July 7, 2021

Disruptive behavior affects hospital financial health.

December 22, 2010

Managing disruptive behaviors in the health care setting: focus on obstetrics services.

May 18, 2011

The quality and economic impact of disruptive behaviors on clinical outcomes of patient care.

May 4, 2011

Patient safety in the dialysis facility.

January 11, 2006

Can you prevent adverse drug events after hospital discharge?

April 12, 2006

Patient safety 2.0: slaying dragons, not just investigating them.

July 19, 2023

Patients' reports of adverse events: a data linkage study of Australian adults aged 45 years and over.

September 6, 2017

Medication-administration errors in an urban mental health hospital: a direct observation study.

March 11, 2015

What would you ideally do if there were no targets? An ethnographic study of the unintended consequences of top-down governance in two clinical settings.

March 23, 2016

Patient safety professionals as the third victims of adverse events.

June 26, 2019

Contextual errors in medical decision making: overlooked and understudied.

December 16, 2015

Invited article: Managing disruptive physician behavior: impact on staff relationships and patient care.

May 7, 2008

Incidence and impact of physician and nurse disruptive behaviors in the emergency department.

May 4, 2011

A survey of the impact of disruptive behaviors and communication defects on patient safety.

August 13, 2008

Disruptive behavior and clinical outcomes: perceptions of nurses and physicians.

April 21, 2005

Impact and implications of disruptive behavior in the perioperative arena.

July 12, 2006

A prospective, observational study of the effects of implementation strategy on compliance with a surgical safety checklist.

October 30, 2013

Overuse of medical imaging and its radiation exposure: who’s minding our children?

September 28, 2016

Why it is so hard to talk about overuse in pediatrics and why it matters.

August 30, 2017

Safer care at home: use of simulation training to improve standards.

October 19, 2011

The problem with Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles.

February 3, 2016

A new frontier in healthcare risk management: working to reduce avoidable patient suffering.

February 24, 2016

Partial do-not-resuscitate orders: a hazard to patient safety and clinical outcomes?

March 16, 2011

Hospital mortality: when failure is not a good measure of success.

July 30, 2008

Using an interactive voice response system to improve patient safety following hospital discharge.

August 1, 2007

Exploring relationships between hospital patient safety culture and Consumer Reports safety scores.

March 15, 2017

Double checking: a second look.

May 18, 2016

Ethical dilemma in missed melanoma: what to tell the patient and other providers.

May 17, 2017

Sociocultural factors influencing incident reporting among physicians and nurses: understanding frames underlying self- and peer-reporting practices.

October 15, 2014

Barriers and success factors to the implementation of a multi-site prospective adverse event surveillance system.

July 23, 2014

Patient safety and the question of dignitary harms.

March 15, 2023

Improving responses to safety incidents: we need to talk about justice.

February 23, 2022

A simulation design for research evaluating safety innovations in anaesthesia.

January 28, 2009

Inappropriate opioid dosing and prescribing for children: an unintended consequence of the clinical pain score?

December 7, 2016

Preoperative surgical briefings do not delay operating room start times and are popular with surgical team members.

September 7, 2011

Pre-surgery briefings and safety climate in the operating theatre.

July 27, 2011

Iatrogenic disease management: moderating medication errors and risks in a pharmacy benefit management environment.

January 16, 2008

The effect of the fit between organizational culture and structure on medication errors in medical group practices.

February 7, 2007

A retrospective audit of postoperative days alive and out of hospital, including before and after implementation of the WHO surgical safety checklist.

February 2, 2022

Creating a just culture: the Ottawa Hospital's experience.

August 21, 2019

Usability of a computerised drug monitoring programme to detect adverse drug events and non-compliance in outpatient ambulatory care.

March 27, 2013

Improving patient safety through the systematic evaluation of patient outcomes.

February 13, 2013

Beyond FMEA: the structured what-if technique (SWIFT).

September 26, 2012

Patient safety attitudes and behaviors of graduating medical students.

September 21, 2011

Rare adverse medical events in VA inpatient care: reliability limits to using patient safety indicators as performance measures.

February 6, 2008

Improving patient safety: moving beyond the "hype" of medical errors.

October 26, 2005

Facilitated self-reported anaesthetic medication errors before and after implementation of a safety bundle and barcode-based safety system.

February 13, 2019

Managing the prevention of retained surgical instruments: what is the value of counting?

January 9, 2008

Obstetrician/gynecologist hospitalists: can we improve safety and outcomes for patients and hospitals and improve lifestyle for physicians?

August 15, 2012

Influence of house-staff experience on teaching-hospital mortality: the "July Phenomenon" revisited.

October 5, 2011

Using pharmacists to optimize patient outcomes and costs in the ED.

August 27, 2014

Measuring safety in older adult care homes: a scoping review of the international literature.

May 19, 2021

Quality of medication use in primary care—mapping the problem, working to a solution: a systematic review of the literature.

October 21, 2009

Adverse incidents, patient flow and nursing workforce variables on acute psychiatric wards: the Tompkins Acute Ward Study.

February 28, 2007

The influence of the structure and culture of medical group practices on prescription drug errors.

August 31, 2005

Global oximetry: an international anaesthesia quality improvement project.

October 21, 2009

Provider-patient communication and hospital ratings: perceived gaps and forward thinking about the effects of COVID-19.

December 16, 2020

Resident hesitation in the operating room: does uncertainty equal incompetence?

November 21, 2018

Pain states, the opioid epidemic, and the role of radiologists.

April 4, 2018

Empowering informal caregivers with health information: OpenNotes as a safety strategy.

March 14, 2018

Providers contextualise care more often when they discover patient context by asking: meta-analysis of three primary data sets.

March 2, 2016

The relationship between patients' perception of care and measures of hospital quality and safety.

June 23, 2010

An educational intervention for contextualizing patient care and medical students' abilities to probe for contextual issues in simulated patients.

October 6, 2010

House staff team workload and organization effects on patient outcomes in an academic general internal medicine inpatient service.

January 17, 2007

Combining ratings from multiple physician reviewers helped to overcome the uncertainty associated with adverse event classification.

August 29, 2007

Labeling morphine milligram equivalents on opioid packaging: a potential patient safety intervention.

August 22, 2018

Overdiagnosis: how our compulsion for diagnosis may be harming children.

December 3, 2014

Related Resources

Disclosing medical errors: prioritising the needs of patients and families.

July 5, 2023

Structural racism in behavioral health presentation and management.

May 17, 2023

A systems analysis of work-related violence in hospitals: stakeholders, contributory factors, and leverage points.

February 22, 2023

Structural racism and impact on sickle cell disease: sickle cell lives matter.

January 11, 2023

Medical error and vulnerable communities.

November 16, 2022

A new category of "never events"-ending harmful hospital policies.

November 9, 2022

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic.

October 12, 2022

Who killed patient safety?

July 20, 2022

A blueprint for success: implementation of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandated anesthesiology oversight for procedural sedation in a large health system.

June 15, 2022

Structural racism and the COVID-19 experience in the United States.

July 7, 2021

Moving beyond the weekend effect: how can we best target interventions to improve patient care?

June 30, 2021

Missing diagnoses during the COVID-19 pandemic: a year in review.

June 23, 2021

Effects of nurse-to-patient ratio legislation on nurse staffing and patient mortality, readmissions, and length of stay: a prospective study in a panel of hospitals.

June 2, 2021

Hastened death due to disease burden and distress that has not received timely, quality palliative care is a medical error.

August 12, 2020

To err Is human, unless you are a healthcare provider.

August 3, 2020

Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response.

June 3, 2020

Harnessing the power of medical malpractice data to improve patient care.

January 8, 2020

Medical error in the care of the unrepresented: disclosure and apology for a vulnerable patient population.

September 25, 2019

'Poking the skunk': ethical and medico-legal concerns in research about patients' experiences of medical injury.

July 17, 2019

Deaths among opioid users: impact of potential inappropriate prescribing practices.

May 15, 2019

Is it time for safeguards in the adoption of robotic surgery?

May 15, 2019

Drug diversion and impaired health care workers.

May 1, 2019

Criminalisation of unintentional error in healthcare in the UK: a perspective from New Zealand.

April 24, 2019

When a nurse is prosecuted for a fatal medical mistake, does it make medicine safer?

April 17, 2019

Use of a public health law framework to improve medication safety by anesthesia providers.

March 20, 2019

Structural iatrogenesis—a 43-year-old man with "opioid misuse."

March 6, 2019

Drs Bramhall and Bawa-Garba and the rightful domain of the criminal law.

February 20, 2019

Reversing the rise in maternal mortality.

January 16, 2019

Defining and classifying terminology for medication harm: a call for consensus.

December 19, 2018

Can communication-and-resolution programs achieve their potential? Five key questions.

December 19, 2018

See More About The Topic

Health Care Providers

Health Care Executives and Administrators

Legal and Policy Approaches

How does the law recognize and deal with medical errors?

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

How does the law recognize and deal with medical errors?

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

PSNet Log in

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site