Decreasing Medical Errors and Minimizing Clinical Risks

CE Course Description

Understanding clinical risk management in behavioral healthcare is essential for building safer health systems and improving client safety.  While medical and behavioral health errors are inevitable, they can harm clients, clinicians, and institutions. Building a safe healthcare system means designing care processes to ensure that all clients are safe and that professionals have mechanisms to address human errors. This course will educate behavioral health professionals on the causes and seriousness of clinical errors, how these risks can be minimized, and how reporting systems can enhance safety for clients, clinicians, and organizations. 

Author: Kimberley Fortin, LCSW-R

CE Course Objectives

1. Identify the causes, frequencies, and levels of seriousness of clinical errors.
2. Examine how medical errors and clinical risks can be minimized.
3. Examine how medical and clinical errors impact clients and behavioral health providers.
4. Explore how reporting systems can enhance safety for clients, clinicians, and organizations

Introduction and Understanding Medical & Behavioral Health Errors

• Introduction (5 minutes)

• Medical & Behavioral Health Error Definitions (20 minutes)
  • What are medical errors? (5 minutes)
  • Active Error (2 minutes)
  • Adverse Event (2 minutes)
  • Latent Error (2 minutes)
  • Medical Error, Negligence, Negligent Adverse Events (5 minutes)
  • Near Miss, Never Event, Noxious Episode (2 minutes)
  • Patient Safety, Potentially Compensable Event, Root Cause (5 minutes)
  • Sentinel Event (2 minutes)

• Joint Commission Patient Safety Goals (10 minutes)
  • Identify individuals served correctly (2 minutes)
  • Use medicines safely (3 minutes)
  • Prevent infection (3 minutes)
  • Identify individuals served safety risks (2 minutes)

• Consequences & Solutions (5 minutes)

• Errors and Risks in Mental Health (10 minutes)
  • Patient Suicide (5 minutes)

Risk Management and Error Prevention 

• Risk Management (20 minutes)
  • Diagnosis Errors (5 minutes)
  • Cognitive Bias & Diagnosis Error (5 minutes)
  • Effects of Misdiagnosis & Risk Management for Diagnostic Errors (5 minutes)
  • Medication Errors & Preventing Medication Errors (5 minutes) 

• Mandatory Reporting (5 minutes)
  • Children, Elderly, Intimate Partners (5 minutes)

• Case Study & Discussion (5 minutes)

• Boundary Crossings and Boundary Violations (10 minutes)
  • Risk Management (5 minutes)
  • Social Media & Risk Management (5 minutes)

• Case Study & Discussion (5 minutes)

• Email & Text Messages (5 minutes)
  • Risk Management (5 minutes)

• Telemental Health (10 minutes)
  • Risk Management (5 minutes)
  • Case Study & Discussion (5 minutes)

• Electronic Health Records (5 minutes)

Communication Errors, Responding to Errors, and Preventing Burnout

• Errors in Communication (20 minutes)
  • Verbal Errors & Prevention (10 minutes)
  • Written Errors & Prevention (10 minutes)

• Consequences of Medical Errors (10 minutes)
  • Effects on Clients, Clinical Staff, and Client-Clinician Relationship (10 minutes)

• Responding to Medical Errors (20 minutes)
  • Responding to One’s Own Errors (10 minutes)
    • Coping Process, Disclosure to Client & Family, Learning from the Incident (10 minutes)
  • Responding to Colleagues' Errors (10 minutes)
    • Witnessing a Colleague’s Error & Institutional Responses (5 minutes)
    • Reporting Errors, Root Cause Analysis, Failure Mode Effects Analysis (5 minutes)

• Medical Errors and Burnout (15 minutes)
  • Effects of Burnout & Preventing Burnout (10 minutes)

• Preventing Errors (10 minutes)
  • Individual Providers & Administration/Supervision (5 minutes)
  • Workplace Design & Computerized Systems (5 minutes)
  • General Strategies to Reduce Risk (5 minutes)

• Conclusion (5 minutes)

References and Appendices

• References (5 minutes)
• Appendices (5 minutes, if necessary)