Medical Errors: Promoting a Culture of Patient Safety

Important message regarding license expiration dates:
As part of the response efforts to the Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID- 19), State Surgeon General, Scott Rivkees has extended the licensure renewal expiration date until March 31, 2021 for any health care practitioner with licensure renewal deadlines between December 31, 2020 and March 01, 2021. The license expiration date for Medical Doctor is extended to March 31, 2021.

Medical Errors: Promoting a Culture of Patient Safety satisfies continuing education relicensure requirements for Florida doctors. The purpose of this course is to promote patient safety and improve patient outcomes by providing an overview of the safety concerns facing healthcare systems today, including statistics and background on the magnitude of the problem and error reduction, prevention and root cause analysis. This course includes information relating to the five most mis-diagnosed conditions during the previous biennium, as determined by the Florida Board.

Current Florida Board of Medicine relicensure requirements available here.

Target Audience

Allopathic Physicians, Osteopathic Physicians, Dentists, Podiatrists, Physician Assistants and Dietitians licensed in the State of Florida.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion, participants should be able to: 

  • Identify the most commonly misdiagnosed conditions during the previous biennium as identified by the Florida Board of Medicine.
  • Define the process and benefit of root cause analysis.
  • Address error-prone situations to create safe systems of care as an error reduction and prevention strategy.
  • Identify cognitive and system-related causes of diagnostic error.
  • Explain the impact of electronic medical records (EMR) on medical errors made during hospitalizations and the role of EMR in patient safety.
  • Implement Baptist Health policies and procedures for reporting medical errors and adverse events.
Additional information
Bibliography: 

Rodziewicz, T. L., & Hipskind, J. E. (2020). Medical Error Prevention. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing.

Boysen P. G., 2nd (2013). Just culture: a foundation for balanced accountability and patient safety. The Ochsner journal, 13(3), 400–406.

Heath, S. (2019, November 26). Reflecting on To Err is Human: 20 Years of Patient Safety Work. Patient Engagement Hit. https://patientengagementhit.com/news/reflecting-on-to-err-is-human-20-years-of-patient-safety-work

The Joint Commission. (n.d.). Sentinel Event. https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics/sentinel-event

The Joint Commission. (n.d.) The Universal Protocol. https://www.jointcommission.org/standards/universal-protocol/

Course Summary
Available credit: 
  • 2.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
  • 2.00 General certificate of attendance
  • 2.00 Florida Board of Dentistry
  • 2.00 Florida Board of Dietitians
  • 2.00 Florida Board of Podiatric Medicine
Course opens: 
10/01/2020
Course expires: 
01/31/2021

Mark L. Graber, M.D., FACP
CMO, Founder and President Emeritus 
Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine
Senior Fellow, Health Care Quality and Outcomes 
RTI International
Professor Emeritus, SUNY Stony Brook
Palm Desert, California

Louis T. Gidel, M.D., Ph.D., FCCP
Chief Medical Informatics Officer
Chief Quality Medical Director of Telehealth
Baptist Health South Florida

Content Contributors:

Yvette A. King-Archer, BSN, R.N.
Corporate Patient Safety Officer
Risk Management
Baptist Health South Florida

Elizabeth Greene Taquechel, M.S., R.N., CPHQ
Corporate Patient Safety Officer
Risk Management/Patient Safety Department
Baptist Health South Florida

Louis T. Gidel, M.D., Ph.D., Yvette A. King-Archer, BSN, R.N., and Elizabeth Greene Taquechel, M.S., R.N., CPHQ, have indicated that neither they nor their spouses/partners have relevant financial relationships with commercial interest companies, and they will not include off-label or unapproved product usage in their presentations or discussions.

Mark L. Graber, M.D., FACP, is on the advisory boards of MayaMD, Buoy Health, Peach Intellihealth and RecoverX. He will not include off-label or unapproved product usage in his presentation or discussion.

Content contributors, nonfaculty contributors and others involved in the planning, development and editing/review of the content have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Disclosure Policy and Disclaimer

Baptist Health South Florida is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Baptist Health has been re-surveyed by the ACCME and awarded Commendation for 6 years as a provider of CME for physicians.

Baptist Health South Florida designates this enduring material for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity has been approved for 2 credit hours, CE Broker Course #20-756247, by the Florida Boards of Medicine, Osteopathic Medicine, Podiatry, Dentistry and by the Florida Council of Physician Assistants.

This activity has also been approved for 2 credit hours by the Florida Council of Dietetics and Nutrition. Baptist Health South Florida CE Broker Provider #50-182.

Available Credit

  • 2.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
  • 2.00 General certificate of attendance
  • 2.00 Florida Board of Dentistry
  • 2.00 Florida Board of Dietitians
  • 2.00 Florida Board of Podiatric Medicine
Please login or register for a Baptist Health CME account to take this course.

Required Hardware/Software

PC/Mac Users
PC/Mac Users

This site is supported on the most recent stable releases of the following browsers:

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Attention: Internet Explorer Users
This site offers limited support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). When using IE11, you will be prompted to download course videos instead of viewing them in the browser. After the course video downloads, the recordings will play.

Mobile Users
Mobile Users

This site is supported on the following mobile devices:

  • Apple iOS mobile devices running iOS 10 or later
  • Android mobile devices running Android 4.4 or later, with the latest release of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox
Technical Support
Technical Support

If you are experiencing technical difficulties or have received an error message, please send an email to CME@baptisthealth.net and include a print screen of the error message, your browser name and version, username and URL where the error occurred. You can expect a response within 48 hours.