Underreporting of errors is a major patient safety problem. While the literature suggests that the likelihood of reporting varies with the severity of the outcomes that an error generates, this relationship has not been empirically investigated. This study investigates the relationship between medical error outcomes severity and error reporting by physicians and nurses in a large medical center. Survey results indicate that physicians are more likely t report errors associated with the most severe outcomes than to report errors that result in mild or moderately severe outcomes. In addition, nurses are more likely than physicians to report the occurrence of a medical error.
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