Healthcare providers know that the public is invested in the reporting of and the prevention of medical errors. The website Dead by Mistake is run by Hearst newspapers and is a consumer oriented site with scary stories of medical mishaps that would make even the bravest among us afraid to receive hospital care.
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The site only posts information from California, Connecticut, New York, Texas and Washington. They also post a map of states with reporting laws. The states in red currently have no mandatory reporting at all.
Go to their site to see an example of the typical story on the painful result that can come from errors: story 6555184. Would the story would have a different tone if this incident had been handled through a transparent process in which the family was involved in developing a system that would support the prevention of devastating outcomes such as this? Organizations must have a commitment to creating safe systems for staff and patients.
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