Health Care Errors and Patient Safety

Brian Hurwitz, NHS GP, Professor of Medicine and the Arts, King’s College, London.Aziz Sheikh, NHS GP, Professor of Primary Care Research and Development, University of EdinburghThe editors have worked together on medical error in the past and have a considerable track record of jointly undertaken research and peer review publication in primary health care related fields. They have established contacts with many of the proposed chapter authors.

• Section 1: Understanding medical errors. 1. Historical recognition and conceptual understanding of error as an inevitable component of clinical work International overview.2. The patient safety implications of transitions in healthcare.3. Are all errors the same?.4. How does the law deal with medical errors?.Section 2: Key clinical issues.5. The epidemiology of patient safety.6. Diagnostic errors: psychological theories and research implications.7. The aftermath of error on patients and health care staff.8. Medicines management to minimise errors in primary care.9. Error and organizational change.10. Error reporting systems.11. Analysis of health care error reports.Section 3: Learning from errors.12. Errors as individual learning opportunities.13. 'Mince or mice'? misunderstandings and patient safety in a linguistically diverse community.14. Patient safety and patient error.15. Significant event auditing and root cause analysis of errors.16. Teaching students about medical errors.17. Medical education.18. Medical errors in narratives and case histories.Section 4: Communicating with the public.19. The patient's role in preventing errors and promoting safety.20. Health care errors and the media.21. The many advantages and some disadvantages of a no-blame culture regarding medical errors