Incident Reporting Systems

The Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandate that facilities have a way to track adverse events. Some states also have reporting requirement for certain types of adverse events.

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Policies and Procedures for Healthcare Organizations: A Risk Management Perspective

Risk management professionals should not take lightly the complexity associated with providing healthcare services. While regulations, third-party payer requirements, and licensing/accreditation standards contribute to this complexity, formalized policies and procedures can mitigate it by promoting workplace safety, regulatory compliance, and the delivery of safe, high-quality patient care.

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Editor’s Notebook: Learning by Definition

Careful use of terminology is essential in patient safety literature. Lucian Leape (1994) takes great care to define terms in his foundational article, “Error in Medicine.” Using the construct originated by James Reason, he defines error as “an unintended act (either of omission or commission) or one that does not achieve its intended outcome” (p. 1851).

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