(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Rockville, MD) -- According to a new study funded by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, most doctors’ think that current systems to report and share information about errors are inadequate. Consequently, important information about medical errors and how to prevent them often isn’t shared with the hospital or the health care organization. As a result, such information isn’t aggregated for analysis and systematic improvement.

“These findings shed light on an important question—how to create error-reporting programs that will encourage clinician participation,” states AHRQ director, Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy.

To assess physicians’ attitudes about communicating errors with their colleagues and health care organizations, study authors used a 68-question survey to poll a geographically diverse group of more than 1,000 physicians and surgeons practicing in rural and urban areas in Missouri and Washington state between July 2003 and March 2004.

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