Hiding ErrorsOn October 12 of 1997, Dr. Lucian Leape, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, briefed a U.S. Congressional subcommittee on the state of human error management in the U.S. medical industry.
Dr. Leape stated that only 2 to 3% of major errors are reported through hospital incident reporting systems. As a result most hospitals are unaware of the extent of their errors and injuries. Because of the punitive work environment health care workers were motivated to report only what they could not conceal.
