Do EMS personnel identify, report, and disclose medical errors?

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medical Services
• Patient Safety
• Healthcare Quality Improvement

Background:

• Understanding error management in prehospital care is crucial for patient safety.
• Self-reports of error frequency, disclosure, and reporting provide insight into practice.
• Hypothetical scenarios can assess provider responses to errors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate prehospital providers' self-reported error frequency, disclosure, and reporting in practice.
• To assess error identification, disclosure, and reporting patterns using hypothetical scenarios.

Main Methods:

• A two-part survey was administered to prehospital providers at a statewide conference.
• Part 1 assessed demographics and actual practice patterns.
• Part 2 used hypothetical scenarios to evaluate error identification, disclosure, and reporting.

Main Results:

• Of 283 emergency medical technicians analyzed, 55% reported no errors in the past year.
• In hypothetical cases, severe errors were identified 93% of the time, with variable identification of mild errors.
• Providers were more likely to report errors to supervisors or hospitals than to patients.

Conclusions:

• Prehospital providers show capacity for error management in simulations but may not consistently apply it in practice.
• Enhancing error management requires targeted education and training for prehospital providers.
• Improving error reporting and disclosure is key to advancing patient safety in prehospital settings.