Main description:

Developing best practices and ethical systems to protect and enhance patient safety.

Human errors occur all too frequently in medical practice settings. One sobering recent report claimed that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Hoping to reverse this disturbing trend but wondering why it is that things usually go well despite errors, John D. Banja's Patient Safety Ethics lays out a model that advocates vigilance, mindfulness, compliance, and humility as core ethical principles of patient safety.

Arguing that the safe provision of healthcare is one of the most fundamental moral obligations of clinicians, Banja surveys the research literature on harm-causing medical errors to explore the ethical foundations of patient safety and to reduce the severity and frequency of medical error. Drawing on contemporary scholarship on quality improvement, risk management, and medical decision making, Banja also relies on a novel source of information to illustrate patient safety ethics: medical malpractice suits.

Providing professional perspective with insights from prominent patient safety experts, Patient Safety Ethics identifies hazard pitfalls and suggests concrete ways for clinicians and regulators to improve patient safety through an ethically cultivated program of "hazard awareness."

Contents:

Preface
Part I. Patient Safety and Ethical Theory: The Significance of Vigilance, Mindfulness, Compliance, and Humility
Chapter 1. Ethical Foundations of Patient Safety
Chapter 2. Vigilance
Interview with Richard Cook
Chapter 3. Mindfulness
Interview with Pat Croskerry
Chapter 4. Compliance
Chapter 5. Humility
Interview with June Price Tangney
Part II. Some Theoretical Musings on Harm and Risk, Medical Error, and Medical Malpractice Litigation as an Ethical Exercise
Chapter 6. Some Theoretical Aspects of Vigilance and Risk Acceptability
Chapter 7. Fifty Shades of Error
Interview with Fran Charney
Chapter 8. The Standard of Care and Medical Malpractice Law as Ethical Achievement
Interview with Tommy Malone
Chapter 9. The Present and the Future
Interview with Bob Wachter
References
Index