Nurses Must Feel Safe Enough To Report Errors

When supervising nurses follow the safety instructions that they give subordinates and when unit nurses feel comfortable admitting mistakes, the risk of hospital medical errors falls. That’s the finding of a new study that probes how care providers experience a conflict between the enforcement of safety procedures and the reporting of errors.

According to the researchers, this conflict is far too prevalent in American hospitals. For instance, many nurses feel that they will be reprimanded or punished for reporting medical errors, and this discourages many of them from speaking up. In such hospitals, errors may go unreported and therefore unresolved.

The researchers based their analysis on 54 nursing teams in four Belgian hospitals. The researchers were trying to analyze whether the actions of the head nurses correlated with expectations from staff nurses. A team of nurses consisted of one head nurse and three staff nurses, and the nurses were surveyed about their experiences.

The researchers found that when the head nurses’ instructions about safety procedures were perfectly aligned with their own actions, there was a much stronger commitment among the staff nurses to patient safety. The staff nurses felt safer reporting medical errors, and consequently, this led to a reduction in errors in treating patients.

For this reason, it is important that nurses and other support medical staff feel safe when they report medical errors. This creates a hospital culture in which staff members are encouraged to report errors and feel a stronger commitment to preventing the incidence of such errors in the future.

If you have suffered an injury as a result of medical negligence, a Seattle medical malpractice attorney at Morrow Kidman Tinker Macey-Cushman, PLLC can assist you. We help our clients receive compensation for their lost income, medical costs and other damages. Contact us today for a free evaluation of your case. Call (206) 752-4366 or use our convenient online form to submit your case for review.