Disclosing medical errors: prioritising the needs of patients and families

Our mission and how we hope to move the field forward: statement from theBMJ Quality & Safetysenior editorial team 2023

“…In any field it is difficult to make progress without consensus on basic definitions and measurement tools. There is still disagreement among the various stakeholders in our community about terminology and definitions for fundamental concepts like harm, error, disclosure and resolution 17. Similarly, in 2020, we called for better measurement approaches to adverse events, noting that “we will show progress in patient safety by tracking common, well-defined patient safety problems, not some general measure of all possible harms from medical care, the nature of which will inevitably change over time” 18.…”

“…There is still disagreement among the various stakeholders in our community about terminology and definitions for fundamental concepts like harm, error, disclosure and resolution. 17 Similarly, in 2020, we called for better measurement approaches to adverse events, noting that "we will show progress in patient safety by tracking common, well-defined patient safety problems, not some general measure of all possible harms from medical care, the nature of which will inevitably change over time". 18 Yet we still see incoherence in, for example, the reporting standards and measurement systems used to detect paediatric adverse events.…”