Breaking Through Dangerous Silence to Tap an Organization's Richest Source of Information: Its Own Staff

摘要

No research group has so patiently, methodically, and relentlessly pursued peer review like the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) research team led by Gerald Hickson, the senior author of the article, "Using Coworker Observations to Promote Accountability for Disrespectful and Unsafe Behaviors by Physicians and Advanced Practice Professionals,"1 which appears in this issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. More than 25 years ago, Hickson and colleagues began to study the factors that prompted patients to file malpractice claims. Since, the team has relentlessly examined the human side of patient injury/medical malpractice-remarkable when one considers the fact that their work straddled a considerable period of time in which it was politically correct to insist on a "blameless culture" and to emphasize systems not people in the search for root causes of avoidable patient injury.