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Below is a news article that has made its way around the Internet:
Docs generally don't report errors or colleagues who make errors. It's a familiar story; however, a disclosure program can change this situation for the better. Disclosure changes the culture of a hospital or medical practice. People are encouraged to report adverse events, and all staff members feel more empowered. Medical errors are eventually seen as golden learning opportunities with a robust disclosure program. Bottom line, disclosure improves medical care and reduces errors by encouraging people to report and talk about events. Hopefully the article below will eventually be a thing of the past.
Almost 50 Percent of U.S. Doctors Keep the Lid Shut on Incompetence
by Daisy Sarma
December 4, 2007
The Money Times
A new report by researchers uncovered an alarming trend: nearly half of all doctors in the United States failed to report a colleague who was incompetent or even unethical. The doctors surveyed during the course of the study, however, agreed such mistakes and practices should be reported.
Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the report showed of the total number of doctors who were part of the study, 46 percent knew of at least one serious medical error on the part of a colleague. None of this 46 percent, however, reported the error to the authorities.
The leader of the study was Eric Campbell from the Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston's Harvard Medical School. Campbell and his team surveyed a total of 1,600 doctors during 2003 and 2004 for their report.
The study showed close to 96 percent of the doctors surveyed said all cases of "significant incompetence" or medical errors should be reported to the hospital clinic or the medical authorities. Among cardiologists and surgeons, this number was substantially lesser at 45 percent.
Also, 85 percent of the doctors surveyed said patients or their relatives needed to know about any significant errors on the part of the doctor treating the patient. Unfortunately, most of this was just what the doctors believed should be done. According to Campbell, there was a big gap between what the doctors admitted to knowing was the right thing to do and actually doing it.
The study came up with some other startling facts. For instance, it showed a number of doctors did not mind subjecting a patient to mostly unnecessary and sometimes expensive test procedures, such as MRI scans. The number of doctors who said they tried to ensure they did not unintentionally treat a patient differently from others on account of race or sex stood at 25 percent.
At least 40 percent of the doctors surveyed said they knew about some serious medical error occurring in their practice or hospital, and 31 percent admitted they had not done anything about it at least once. Other alarming trends also came to the fore. For instance, while 93 percent of the doctors surveyed said patients deserved care irrespective of whether they could pay, only 69 percent actually treated patients without insurance.
The number of doctors who have subjected themselves to a competency review over the past three years stands at a mere 31 percent. All of this information assumes vital significance in the light of a report by the U.S. Institute of Medicine in 2000 that said 98,000 Americans die every year solely because of medical errors in hospitals.
So what prevents medical boards from going after erring doctors? Dr. James Thompson, CEO of the Federation of State Medical Boards, says state medical boards face limitations when it comes to punishing physicians. He also said one reason why doctors did not report erring colleagues was because they were aware not much could be done about making them more competent.
Dr. Thompson said other problems included the fact that many of the state medical boards were understaffed and did not receive adequate funding. He said there were certain state medical boards that did not even have their own investigating team. Finally, Dr. Thompson said no state board could take action unless someone reported an erring doctor, which threw the ball back in the court of the doctors.
Regardless of who needs to do something about it, the fact remains that something needs to be done fast about unethical and incompetent doctors; otherwise more Americans will continue to die at hospitals because of medical errors.
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