Clear communication of clinical information is an essential component of delivering safe and effective medical care, whether in emergency departments, critical care areas, operating rooms or patient wards. Inadequate communication of information is a major contributor to preventable medical errors.1 The average 500-bed heath care facility loses $4 million per year as a result of communication inefficiencies. More important, communication failures may lead to patient harm, serious injury or death.
CRICO is the captive insurer serving the Harvard Medical community. The Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, Inc. (RMF) was established to apply a data-driven approach to claims management and patient safety on behalf of its insured organizations. CRICO Strategies, a division of RMF, extends CRICO’s patient safety mission to reduce errors and malpractice exposures and curates a database of more than 350,000 malpractice claims from over 400 hospitals and 165,000 physicians, including more than 30 academic...
