Learning from medical mistakes

An accidental needle stick. Incorrectly entered data. The wrong prescription. Lost test results. Although medical errors don't always result in physical harm, they're events physicians and clinicians hope to avoid.

Assistant Professor Ben-Tzion Karsh (center), Family Medicine Clinical Professor John Beasley and graduate student Kamisha Hamilton want to help health care professionals learn from their mistakes. Eventually, the group hopes to design a user-centered error-reporting system that supplies family medicine physicians and clinicians with real-time feedback and a searchable database of lessons learned. "The people who are going to be the end users of the system — the people who are taking care of patients — should have primary input into how that system is designed," says Beasley.

To develop criteria for such a system, the trio held a series of focus groups to solicit input from doctors from the Wisconsin Academy of Family Physicians and nurses and medical assistants in family practice. Their comments will help the researchers decide everything from what information to report and who will administer the data to what features will motivate people to use the system. The project is funded by UW-Madison University-Industry Relations.