Page 14 - Avoiding Surgical Mishaps Part 1

SVMIC Avoiding Surgical Mishaps: Dissecting the Risks

Specifically, the report found that 27 percent of the 7,149

malpractice cases in the study group involved surgery. Sliced
further, the data show that more than a quarter of all surgery

malpractice cases involved one or more communication
errors. About two-thirds of those were provider-to-patient

failures, overlapping with 48 percent that included provider-
to-provider errors. The authors of the study point out that the

communication problems are not limited to a provider’s people
skills or a patient’s language barrier. The benchmarking report

shows that harm resulted when facts, figures, or findings got lost
between the people who had the information and the people

who needed it.

The following graph of SVMIC claims paid related to
communication issues demonstrates that communication

between physicians and patients, including informed consent,
and communication between physicians and other physicians

creates 84 percent of the communication failures found in
surgical claims. An additional 13 percent of the risk issues in

communication were related to the communication between the
physician and staff.

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