never event

n. a (serious or life-endangering) medical error. Subjects: English, Medical, Euphemism, Jargon

Editorial Note: So-called because such occurrences should never happen.

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Citations: 2000 National Quality Forum Management Report (Sept.) “Board of Directors Meeting”: We responded to the DHHS RFP for hospital performance standards and both patient safety projects (patient safety best practices and medical error “never events") on August 4th. 2001 Ed Lovern Modern Healthcare (May 28) “Holding hospitals accountable” vol. 31, no. 22, p. 6: Hospitals should be required to report certain medical errors to publicly accessible, state-run databases to create a level of accountability now lacking in the healthcare system, the National Quality Forum recommended in a report released last week.…The list of what the NQF calls “never events,” or events that should never occur in a hospital, would provide a standard for states to use in refining or developing systems for collecting adverse medical-event information. 2006 Christina Orlovsky NurseZone.com (Jan. 6) “Illinois Passes Never-Events Law ”: In an effort to identify and prevent serious medical errors known as “never events,” Illinois has recently passed a law requiring health care facilities to analyze and publicly report a variety of adverse occurrences. 2006 Keith Darcé Union-Tribune (San Diego, California) (June 25) “Scripps, Sharp sued in Medicare cases”: U.S. taxpayers for years have been footing a huge bill for hospital errors, known as “never events” in health care industry parlance.…“As a necessary step toward encouraging better care and lower overall health care costs, we support further steps such as eliminating payments for never events.”

Posted 30 Jun 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

Considering the legislation being enacted that refers to this list, they do a good job of not making it available online.

by Bob Kamman 18 Dec 06, 1219 GMT