New Jersey § 26:2h-12

§ 26:2h-12.

The Legislature finds and declares that: a. Adverse events, some of which are the result of preventable errors, are inherent

in all systems, and the health care literature demonstrates that the great majority

of medical errors result from systems problems, not individual incompetence; b. Well-designed systems have processes built in to minimize the occurrence of errors,

as well as to detect those that do occur; they incorporate mechanisms to continually

improve their performance; c. To enhance patient safety, the goal is to craft a health care delivery system that

minimizes, to the greatest extent feasible, the harm to patients that results from

the delivery system itself; d. An important component of a successful patient safety strategy is a feedback mechanism

that allows detection and analysis not only of adverse events, but also of “near-misses”; e. To encourage disclosure of these events so that they can be analyzed and used for

improvement, it is critical to create a non-punitive culture that focuses on improving

processes rather than assigning blame. Health care facilities and professionals must be held accountable for serious preventable

adverse events; however, punitive environments are not particularly effective in

promoting accountability and increasing patient safety, and may be a deterrent to

the exchange of information required to reduce the opportunity for errors to occur

in the complex systems of care delivery. Fear of sanctions induces health care professionals and organizations to be silent

about adverse events, resulting in serious under-reporting; and f. By establishing an environment that both mandates the confidential disclosure of

the most serious, preventable adverse events, and also encourages the voluntary, anonymous

and confidential disclosure of less serious adverse events, as well as preventable

events and near misses, the State seeks to increase the amount of information on systems

failures, analyze the sources of these failures and disseminate information on effective

practices for reducing systems failures and improving the safety of patients.