For a legal protection of surgical mishaps reporting

Reporting medical mishaps and processing data collected on errors form the basis of risk management in health care establishments: it is one of the requirements of a growing quality-and-security-focused culture. A double anonymity – that of the person reporting the mishap and that of the medical file potentially mentioned in the report – is therefore needed. This requirement goes however against the dogma of transparency decreed by laws and regulations on patient rights. The result is a globally acknowledged massive underreporting of medical mishaps with numerous consequences. Without legal protection, reporting medical mishaps being made mandatory by law is viewed as either denouncement or admission of error and raises fears of disciplinary measures and sanctions. Such a protection already exists in France in labour law, commercial law and civil aviation law. It also exists for public health care in the United States, Denmark and Australia.The French Academy of Medicine recommends that public health law be added to in order to put an end – within a strict framework – to this context of legal insecurity which undermines the efforts to improve quality and safety in the care provided to patients in France.