What are medical errors?
In the health care/patient safety arena, there is a lot of discussion about how best to define the adverse events that occur in the health care setting. While the public generally thinks of the term “medical error,” this term is not used universally to mean the same thing by everyone.
UMHS Risk Management uses the terminology, “patient incidents/events” and “near misses.” This enables us to take a proactive stand – avoiding incidents before they occur. An “incident” is any event involving a patient that is not consistent with the desired normal or usual medical care of the patient, or operation of the hospital, department or medical center. It may be an actual event or a situation that might result in an event (“near-miss”), injury or have the potential for injury
