What patients say about their own medical errors

In a bid to better understand what goes wrong in medical errors, health care researchers turned to patients and their families to ask their side of the story. Now, in a new paper published in Health Affairs, the researchers report a common trend: Patients often felt that problematic interactions with clinicians played a big part in diagnostic errors. They frequently reported being ignored or disrespected, or said clinicians didn’t communicate well with them. The authors’ advice: Hospitals and health centers should launch programs to formally collect patient reports and use that data to improve care and prevent patient harm.