Disclosure of Medical Errors

Revised and approved by the ACEP Board of Directors April 2010 

Originally approved by the ACEP Board of Directors September 2003 

The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) believes that emergency physicians should provide prompt and accurate information to patients and their representatives about their medical condition and its treatment.  In the emergency department, as in other health care settings, patients may experience adverse events as a result of human error or of flaws in the health care system. Human or system errors can cause significant harm to patients or alter patients’ needs for care. If, after careful review of all relevant information, an emergency physician determines that such an error has occurred in the care of a patient in the emergency department (ED), he or she should provide information about the error and its consequences to the patient, or if the patient is incapacitated, to the patient’s representative in a timely fashion, in accordance with hospital policy on medical error disclosure.

ACEP recognizes that substantial obstacles, including unrealistic expectations of physician infallibility, lack of training about disclosure of errors, and fear of increased malpractice exposure, obstruct the free disclosure to patients of significant medical errors. In order to overcome these obstacles, ACEP recommends the following institutional, professional, and societal initiatives:

• Health care institutions should develop and implement policies and procedures for identifying and responding to medical errors, including continuous quality improvement (CQI) systems and procedures for disclosing significant errors to patients.
   
• Medical educators should develop and incorporate into their curricula programs on identifying and preventing medical errors and on communicating truthfully and sensitively with patients and their representatives about errors.