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Criminalizing Healthcare Errors
Follow these guidelines when completing each component of the Collaboration Café. Contact your course faculty if you have questions.
Include the following sections:
- Application of Course Knowledge: Answer all questions/criteria with explanations and detail.
- Do you recommend criminalizing healthcare errors as an effective approach to holding healthcare providers accountable for their mistakes? Why or why not?
- How can healthcare providers balance the goal of high-quality care with the potential risks and consequences of errors?
- Are current legal and regulatory frameworks adequate to address healthcare errors? If so, why? If not, what changes are necessary to ensure the regulations best serve clients and providers?
- Professionalism in Communication: Communicate with minimal errors in English grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation.
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Criminalizing Healthcare Errors
Application of Course Knowledge
Do you recommend criminalizing healthcare errors as an effective approach to holding providers accountable? Why or why not?
I do not recommend criminalizing healthcare errors as a primary strategy for accountability. While egregious misconduct or willful negligence should face disciplinary or legal consequences, criminalizing unintended clinical errors undermines patient safety culture. Healthcare delivery is inherently complex, and even skilled providers can make mistakes despite best efforts.
According to Jones & Treiber (2021), punitive approaches lead to underreporting of errors, increased stress among staff, and a “culture of silence” where learning from mistakes is impaired. The goal should be system-level improvement, not individual blame unless malice or gross negligence is evident.
How can healthcare providers balance high-quality care with the risks and consequences of errors?
Balancing safety with quality involves embracing a just culture, where errors are openly examined without immediate blame, and root-cause analysis is used to prevent recurrence. Nurses and providers must:
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Adhere to evidence-based protocols
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Engage in continuous learning
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Use checklists and decision support tools
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Maintain open interprofessional communication
Technology also plays a role—electronic health records and barcoding for medication administration can reduce human error, but only if supported by adequate training.
As Reason (1997) highlighted in his “Swiss Cheese Model,” errors are often the result of systemic gaps, not solely personal failings. Recognizing this empowers providers to