Medication Error Disclosure: Legal and Ethical Implications

Introduction

There is a common saying that nobody is perfect. No human being is immune to errors and mistakes from time to time — not even trained professionals in the course of discharging their duties and roles. In a medical setting, the cost of even the simplest of errors could be immense. For this reason, it is prudent to assess the legal and ethical implications of disclosure and non-disclosure of a personal error, and to determine the course of action that would be most appropriate when medication errors are detected. It is equally important to evaluate strategies and approaches that can minimize medication errors in clinical practice.

Ethical Considerations in Medication Error Disclosure

One of the most important considerations, from an ethical perspective, that health practitioners ought to make with reference to the disclosure of medication errors is whether or not they — or their loved ones — would wish to be notified if they were to find themselves in a similar scenario. For one to have a fair expectation of protection from harm, he or she should apply the same standard to others with respect to protecting them from harm.

The ethical principle most applicable in this case is that of nonmaleficence — which is essentially "an ethical principle that requires caregivers to avoid causing patients harm" (Pozgar, 2019, p. 16). Failure to disclose a medication error would be akin to deliberately inflicting harm on another human being, which is hypocritical if one would expect to be shielded from harm in a similar situation.