Blame culture and defensive medicine
Defensive medicine takes place when healthcare personnel (doctors and nurses) order unnecessary treatments (positive defensive medicine) or avoid high-risk procedures or patients (negative defensive medicine) with the principlethough not exclusiveaim of reducing their expose to damages claims. This phenomenon is directly related to the significant growth in medical malpractice litigation over recent years. Defensive medicine increases the cost of healthcare and may expose patients to unnecessary risks. In fact, the large number of legal initiatives taken by patients have induced many doctors to set in place a defensive strategy so as to avoid placing their careers at risk. The threat of medical malpractice litigation constitutes a major obstacle to improving the reliability of healthcare organizations and patient safety.
blame culture defensive medicine patient safety human error organizational learning