Every error a treasure: improving medication use with a nonpunitive reporting system

The fear of reprisal, combined with the additional time required for reporting, are significant disincentives to reporting of medical events. Such considerations provided an incentive for the Upstate Medical University Hospital (Syracuse, New York) to develop monitoring systems to decrease the potential for drug harm. IMPLEMENTING A NONPUNITIVE REPORTING SYSTEM: Previously, a convenient, point-based score card system for punishment and remediation led to underreporting and hindered the identification of safety improvement opportunities in medication use processes. Nursing buy-in was accomplished through careful initial negotiations that emphasized that patients were best served by learning from errors in the medication use process. The revised medication event reporting policy, as established in October 2000 for all staff, severed the link between reporting errors and performance evaluations.

Data collected 18 months before the policy change was compared with data collected after the policy change was enacted in October 2000. The number of reports received each month increased from an average of 19 to 102 (p < .001).

Substantive quality improvements in medication have been achieved by using a systematic approach to the analysis of the markedly increased number of reported medication events following the introduction of a nonpunitive reporting system.