Saying sorry for medical mistakes

SERIOUS failures on the part of healthcare providers can result in devastating outcomes for patients and their families, as well as having traumatic effects on healthcare staff.

Ireland is not unique in this, as errors occur in every healthcare system in the world. The international evidence is that one-in-10 patients admitted to hospital suffer from adverse events such as medication-related errors, surgical errors, healthcare-associated infections, medical device failures, errors in diagnosis, and failure to follow up on test results.

Why do these errors happen? Healthcare professionals are taught that errors are unacceptable: No diagnosis, allergy or previous medical problem can be missed; every test must be tracked down; every medication dose must be exactly right.