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11 - Legal and Regulatory Responses to Avoidable Adverse Medication Events, Part I: General Principles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2021

Alan Merry  and
Joyce Wahr
Alan Merry
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Joyce Wahr
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Summary

Regulatory and legal processes relevant to avoidable adverse medication events have the potential to advance the cause of patient safety but it is expecting too much to believe that these processes alone will achieve the changes that need to be made, urgently and affordably, to reduce the persistently high rate of avoidable adverse medication events. Achieving the required change will require engagement by all concerned, from politicians, through directors of hospital boards and managers and clinical leaders of hospital services to front line clinicians – and also, of necessity, regulators and the legal profession. It has been argued elsewhere that there is an ethical imperative for greater engagement in patient safety,9 and we agree.

Keywords

open disclosureregulationretributionlegislationqualified priviledgepatient rightscompensationpunishmentresearch fraudaccountabilityautonomysanctionsethicsprofessionalism
Type
Chapter
Information
Medication Safety during Anesthesia and the Perioperative Period , pp. 215 - 235
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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