Study:Communication problems foster medical errors

When residents, interns and trainees don't communicate well with the caregiving team, and when more experienced supervisors aren't there, the risk of their making medical errors is higher, according to a new study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The study, which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at 889 closed malpractice claims reviewed between 2002 and 2004, examining the claims to see whether the errors involved trainees. When researchers analyzed the data, they found that medical residents were involved in 87 percent of the roughly one-fourth of cases in which the error was important.

To learn more about this effort:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece [1]

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Program fosters ICU provider, family communication. Report [3]