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Communication is the root cause of medical errors

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, March 2, 2007

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What we have here is a failure to communicate. Nurses and physicians are often reluctant to challenge each other, and people frequently feel they do not have the stature to be able to express their concerns. The results of not speaking up can be disastrous. Data from The Joint Commission found that between 1995 and 2004 communication problems were the leading root causes of the following:

• Sentinel events (75%)
• Delays in treatment (85%)
• Medication errors (nearly 65%)
• Perinatal deaths and injuries (more than 80%)
• Ventilator events (65%)
• Wrong-site surgery (nearly 80%)

To get more information, go to Briefings on Patient Safety (BOPS). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire March issue of BOPS. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of BOPS have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their March issue.

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