Medical Mishap and Negligence: It happens in the Outpatients too

Abstract

When we consider medical negligence and clinical error we think of busy hospitals late at night and at week-ends. We think of crowded emergency medicine departments, complex surgery and the critically ill ICU patient. We think of prescribing errors in the administration of potent intravenous therapy. We think of high risk specialties such as obstetrics, anaesthesia and surgery. We are less likely to think of outpatients/ ambulatory care or a non-interventionist specialty as an important source of litigation. This is remiss on our part. Risks in this setting have gone relatively unnoticed. There 30 times more outpatients than inpatients annually. In the US there are 900 million outpatient visits compared with 30 million inpatients. It is not surprising that this quantum of patient-doctor interaction should also be a source of litigation claims. Furthermore it is likely to continue rising with the increased numbers of procedures now being undertaken at outpatients.