While the public has a right to know about errors causing serious harm, the panel said, Congress should protect the confidentiality of information about less serious mistakes. This, it said, would encourage doctors and hospitals to report such incidents voluntarily. We agree that the nation needs a better system of reporting and tracking these errors, but a new federal agency may not be the answer. Mandatory reporting can be useful, but it must not become punitive. On the surface,' she said, 'it appears to be a relatively straightforward step, but actually it engenders all sorts of problems with confidentiality and liability.
Doctors find themselves in a real bind.
We understand the importance of investigating errors early on, while everybody has a fresh memory. In its report, the National Academy of Sciences said federal and state government agencies should pay more attention to the safety of patients when they license, evaluate and regulate health care providers. It said state licensing boards should periodically re-examine doctors and nurses to check their competence and knowledge of safety practices. More than 7,000 Americans die each year as a result of 'medication errors,' which include the prescribing or dispensing of the wrong drugs, the panel said. Most medical errors, it said, result not from individual recklessness, but from basic flaws in the way hospitals, clinics and pharmacies operate.