The Doctor's Advocate

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CME Courses
We are proud to offer our members convenient options for earning CME credits.


Reduce risk, improve patient safety, and earn CME credits. Learn more about our patient safety seminars.

Disclosure Resources

We strive to help every physician do the right thing in the right way. We provide guidelines that physicians can use in their office practices to enhance their effectiveness when disclosing adverse events and complications.

The Doctors Company supports the American Medical Association’s policy that following an unanticipated outcome, the physician is ethically required to inform the patient of all the facts necessary to ensure an understanding of what occurred. The ethical rationale is that the patient and his or her family have a right to know what happened. Simply put, it’s the right thing to do.

In addition to our recommended guidelines, we encourage you to explore our range of additional disclosure resources.

The Doctors Company’s Disclosure Program

The Doctors Company has developed guidelines that physicians can use in their office practices to enhance their effectiveness when disclosing adverse events and complications. The Doctors Company Patient Safety Department staff will work with you to provide psychological support, communication coaching, and assistance.

 

Johns Hopkins Disclosure Video–
Removing Insult from Injury: Disclosing Adverse Events
We are happy to partner with Dr. Albert Wu and the researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to provide this video resource that helps educate physicians on how to disclose medical errors to their patients and their families.


Johns Hopkins has developed this 25-minute training video, Removing Insult from Injury: Disclosing Adverse Events. It features short vignettes of doctors talking with patients and illustrates realistic examples of challenging disclosure communications. This video can be a helpful tool for practicing physicians and for physicians in training, risk managers, and health care organizations.


Permission has been received by Johns Hopkins to stream this video. No other usage is authorized without its permission.

To order the video, visit www.jhsph.edu/dept/hpm/research/Wu_video.html.

Disclosure Laws: State-by-State Listing

We are pleased to provide you with a comprehensive listing of state disclosure laws.

Thank you to Ms. Roberta Carroll at Aon Healthcare for preparing this state-by-state list and to ASHRM for hosting the information. Permission was received from both Aon and ASHRM to provide you with this resource.

 

The guidelines suggested in this material are not rules, and they do not ensure a successful outcome. They attempt to define principles of practice for providing appropriate communication following adverse clinical outcomes. The principles are not inclusive of all proper communication approaches nor exclusive of other approaches reasonably directed at obtaining the same results. The ultimate decision regarding the appropriateness of any clinical communication must be made by each health care provider in light of all circumstances prevailing in the individual situation and in accordance with the laws of the jurisdiction in which the care is rendered.