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Error Management: Legal and Regulatory Responsibilities

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Error Reduction and Prevention in Surgical Pathology

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Abstract

Laws, governmental and nongovernmental regulations, and accreditation standards that control the laboratory environment affect safety and strongly influence surgical pathology error prevention and reduction. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is the primary governmental entity involved with surgical pathology, and the College of American Pathologists is a key accrediting agency. Surgical pathology laboratories have instituted or strengthened several error reduction programs to meet increasingly stringent accrediting agency requirements and regulatory requirements regarding surgical pathology error. Medical malpractice risk reduction efforts focus on misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, and failure to diagnose. With the “loss of chance” doctrine, the legal system is adapting to consider the standard of cares’ increasing requirement for early, accurate, and specific diagnoses. It is likely that checklists, a relatively recent addition to the health quality armamentarium, will in the future not only provide increasing cost savings but also assist in decreasing medical error. Apology for medical error, not long ago considered to be a popular mechanism for reducing medical malpractice risk, has recently received heavy criticism, and despite its popularity, its future use is problematic. Ultimately, a no-fault system of compensation for medical injuries might allow for more surgical pathology error transparency and yield increased patient safety. Successful advancement of medical error reduction, including surgical pathology error reduction, will require physicians to work closely with other stakeholders.

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  1. Department of Pathology, The University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, USA

    Timothy Craig Allen

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Correspondence to Timothy Craig Allen .

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  1. Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Raouf E. Nakhleh

  2. Rex Healthcare, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Keith E. Volmar

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Allen, T.C. (2019). Error Management: Legal and Regulatory Responsibilities. In: Nakhleh, R., Volmar, K. (eds) Error Reduction and Prevention in Surgical Pathology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18464-3_2

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