Above and beyond ­traditional error reporting

As the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, medical errors just don't seem to be going away. Many healthcare professionals agree that reporting such errors is the only way to learn from them and prevent them in the future. But although most medical centers have systems in place for staff to report errors, oftentimes these systems can be difficult, cumbersome, and seemingly void of any real, noticeable results. Inertia and a sense of "why bother?" sets in, further concealing the flawed systems and their lack of a streamlined way to ensure that the causes of identified ­errors are fixed or improved.

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