Abstract

CALVO-CALVO, Manuel-Ángel. The crisis communication in medical errors: reflections about institutional strategies. Index Enferm [online]. 2016, vol.25, n.3, pp.161-165. ISSN 1699-5988.

The aim is to reflect on the communication strategies employed in crisis caused by medical errors, occurred in a Spanish hospital and another Brazilian hospital. It was analyzed news published in 2009 and 2011, in digital media from Spain and Brazil, that dealt with the death of two children and reported that in both cases, the nursing staff injected milk into vein by mistake. Both hospitals described publically the errors, they indicated explicitly to the personnel involved and specified the causes of the error. Also, both hospitals informed of positive actions developed after the facts. It concludes that in both cases, the main crisis communication strategy employed was to shift the blame of the error to other persons. The hospitals should have communicated with openness and accepting the provisional character of the information. Also, they should not blame anyone and consider the receiver's emotions. Equally, the hospitals should have remained accessible to the media and communicate the actions implemented to avoid similar errors in the future. In both cases, hospitals employed successful strategies that they did not use enough: communicate quickly, assume errors and apologize, compensate victims emotionally and highlight good qualities of the hospitals.

Keywords : Public health crisis; Crisis communication; Risk management; Communication strategies; Medical errors; Hospital.