[Which medical errors do general practitioners make? Data from the Expert Arbitration and Advisory Board of the...

In Germany, medical error reporting systems are well established. They collect information reported principally by physicians. Systematic data collection concerning medical errors is also performed by expert arbitration and advisory boards of the German State Medical Associations.

Data base MERS (Medical Error Reporting System); cases from the Expert Arbitration and Advisory Board of the State Baden-Württemberg from the years 2004-2011 (8,042 cases) were evaluated as follows: extraction of the cases from general practitioners (n=307, 4%); categorisation of the type of error and degree of severity; classification according to ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases); overview of confirmed cases including commentaries of the above board; logistic regression analysis of factors potentially associated with confirmed cases.

In 26% (n=80) the board confirmed medical errors. 55% of the errors were assigned to the category "diagnosis" (n=44), 21% to "general therapy" (n=17), 8% to "operative therapy" ("minor surgical operations") (n=6) and 10% to "injections" (n=8). 29% of cases (n=23) were associated with permanent damage or death. The majority of cases could be assigned to ICD-10 categories "I" (cardiovascular system, n=20) and "S-T" or "V-Y" (consequences of external causes or external causes of morbidity and mortality, n=34). No significant associations were found by logistic regression analysis.

The rate of confirmed cases corresponds with the rate of all medical disciplines. The presented overview is illustrative and may be of help to avoid errors by using it for continuing medical education.