Duke University Incident

What happened at Duke University Hospital is a horrible tragedy, and another example of why continuing the dialogue on patient safety is so critical. The National Patient Safety Foundation is committed to preventing this and all types of medical error through education and awareness. When mistakes do happen, NPSF urges full disclosure and accountability by the hospital and the entire healthcare team. In this case, Duke University Hospital did the right thing in disclosing and admitting the error. Hopefully, this type of cooperation from the hospital will lead to a further understanding of why these tragedies occur and what can be done to prevent them in the future.

For a NPSF bibliography on disclosure, please visit:
http://www.npsf.org/biblio/codesDIS.htm

About NPSF
The National Patient Safety Foundation was founded in 1996 by the American Medical Association, CNA HealthPro, 3M, and contributions from the Schering-Plough Corporation. The NPSF is an independent, nonprofit research and education organization. It is an unprecedented partnership of health care practitioners, institutional providers, health product providers, health product manufacturers, researchers, legal advisors, patient/consumer advocates, regulators, and policy makers committed to making health care safer for patients. Through leadership, research support, and education, the NPSF is committed to making patient safety a national priority. For more information, please visit www.npsf.org.