Reporting Medical Errors in Veterinary Medicine

Emily Sorah Campbell, PharmD, RPh, DICVP, FSVHP, FACVP, North Carolina State University

ArticleLast Updated October 20244 min readPeer Reviewed
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Incidence of medical errors (ie, acts of omission or commission in planning or execution that can contribute to unintended results) is a focus of concern in human medicine. Research increased following a report from the Institute of Medicine that introduced the importance of patient safety and medical error reporting.1 One study found >250,000 deaths in US hospitals each year could be attributed to medical errors, making this the third leading cause of death in humans.1,2

Medical errors have not been extensively described in veterinary medicine.3,4 One study examined medical error reports (n = 651) from a small animal teaching hospital, a large animal teaching hospital, and a small animal multispecialty practice.4 Drug errors were the most frequently reported incidents (54%) and were frequently categorized as wrong dose administered, communication error, or both. Nearly half (45%) of all errors affected patients but did not cause harm; 15% resulted in harm. Seven patients experienced permanent harm or death. Increased medical error awareness, education, reporting, and resources are therefore warranted in veterinary medicine.4-6

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How do medical errors occur?

Consideration of common causes can help effectively address medical errors. The Swiss cheese model depicts opportunities for errors throughout an organization and includes institutional (lack of support), technical (suboptimal or malfunctioning equipment), team (lack of supervision or training), individual (limited knowledge or distraction), and patient (complex disease or communication problems) factors.7 Errors occur when events (ie, holes in the cheese) at each level of an organization align. Causes of medical errors include cognitive errors due to unconscious bias, constrained thinking due to stress, cognitive bias (eg, pattern recognition, unconscious reflexive decision-making more common with increased clinical experience), confirmation bias, lapses in verbal and nonverbal communication, miscommunication, sleeping <6 hours per night, working >70 hours per week, and acute or chronic depression.5,8

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