Team-based morbidity and mortality conferences (TBMMs) involve multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary teams in discussions about complex cases and medical errors. This survey of 1,466 perioperative health care professionals found positive perceptions of TBMMs and traditional Morbidity and Mortality Conferences, but identified several barriers to effective implementation of TBMMs, including unsupportive leadership and fear of professional consequences.

Morbidity and Mortality Conferences (MMC) have a long history in medical education and error analysis. This review summarizes MMC best practices to optimize format and design to advance trainee education and format. Four overarching themes emerged, including formal preparation in advance of the MMC, a balance of presentation and discussion, formal channels for quality improvement and education, and an emphasis on safety culture.

Morbidity and mortality conferences offer important opportunities for healthcare teams to discuss adverse events, learn from errors, and improve patient safety. This systematic review examined beneficial aspects of perioperative team-based morbidity and mortality (TBMM) conferences. The authors found that TBMM conferences generally led to improvements in patient safety, quality improvement, and educational outcomes and that certain factors (case preparation, standardized presentation format, effective facilitation) increase TBMM benefits.

Radiological interpretation errors can result in unnecessary additional tests, wrong treatment and delayed diagnosis. This study explored the correlation between neuroradiologists’ diagnostic errors and attendance at institutional tumor boards. Results show that higher attendance at tumor boards was strongly correlated with lower diagnostic error rates. The researchers recommend increased and continuous attendance at tumor boards for all neuroradiologists.

Parents have reported the importance of being involved in discussions with clinicians following adverse events involving their children. This study asked parents and physicians about their perspectives on inclusion of parents in morbidity and mortality (M&M) reviews. Similar to earlier studies, parents wished to be involved, while physicians were concerned that parent involvement would draw attention away from the overall purpose (e.g., quality improvement) of M&M conferences.

Morbidity and mortality conferences (MMC) serve as a way for health care teams to discuss adverse events and errors with the goal of improving patient safety. This article presents five recommendations to improve MMC: encourage culture change; allocate ample time for open communication to foster innovative thinking; take a global approach; learn from errors and near misses; and do not just talk the talk, but also walk the walk.

Clinicians involved in a medical error may experience emotional distress, shame, and self-doubt. This qualitative study with medical and non-medical operating room staff at five hospitals in the United Kingdom explored support received after involvement in a patient safety incident. Participants were most likely to receive support from their peers after a patient safety incident, but highlighted a lack of institutional-level emotional and professional support and the need to cultivate an organizational culture where seeking support is not perceived as a sign of weakness.

Morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences are a useful tool for teams to investigate and learn from adverse events. In this observational study, researchers interviewed clinicians attending surgical M&M conferences to explore the types, and recurrence of, lessons learned. Clinicians ascribed most lessons to technical or individual-level issues, and observed the challenges to sustaining changes at a systems-level. Researchers suggest M&M formats should shift to a broader focus to implement and sustain lasting system-level improvements.

Patients, parents and caregivers play an important role in improving patient safety. Although parents have expressed interest in engaging in perinatal mortality review processes, this international survey of healthcare providers found that less than one-third of respondents (from various types of healthcare facilities) included parents in the review process at their institutions. The authors discuss the potential importance of parental involvement after perinatal mortality to improve care.

Diagnostic errors remain an ongoing patient safety challenge and can result in patient harm. This article describes one large pediatric hospital's experience using a systematic methodology to identify and measure diagnostic errors. The quality improvement (QI) project used five domains (autopsy reports, root cause analyses (RCAs), voluntary reporting system, morbidity & mortality conference, and abdominal pain trigger tool) and adjudication by a QI team to identify cases of diagnostic error; Morbidity & mortality conferences, RCAs and abdominal trigger tool identified the majority (91%) of diagnostic errors.   

The author defines ‘work debate spaces’ as organizational spaces that serve as a vehicle for organizational learning, practice changes, and performance improvement. This article discusses the role of formal and informal ‘work debate spaces’ in establishing a culture of safety in critical care settings. Examples of formal and informal spaces include mortality and morbidity (M&M) meetings (formal) and handoffs between shifts (informal).

This commentary discusses the challenges associated with detecting and measuring adverse events, the limitations of measurement alone, and the existing methodologies that can be leveraged to improve the accuracy of adverse event detection.

Morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences are designed to review adverse events. They are one method by which physicians undergo peer review to evaluate their performance and can allow health systems to identify potential avenues for improving patient safety. A survey of pediatric surgeons found that while the M&M participation was high, few believed the process results in practice changes or preventing future events. M&Ms considered most effective had a structured approach, were data driven with loop closure, emphasized multidisciplinary participation, and served as an educational forum.

Prior research has examined what factors may influence learning from mistakes. Researchers describe their analysis of more than 600 cases discussed at educational radiology conferences over several years. They were able to identify numerous opportunities for improving learning from error, including using positive cases (e.g., near misses or difficult cases in which extra effort helped avert an error) and targeting teaching to address recurrent deficiencies.