Editorial: Errors and biases in modern healthcare: public health, medico-legal and risk management aspects

Abstract

indicating that the patient blames specific professionals rather than the (impersonal) institution for the events (14). Visci et al. focused on a topic of upmost relevance: can the knowledge on the causal processes related to medical errors developed by the experts in legal medicine be used to improve clinical services? Their observations study concluded that structured forensic consultation services should be incorporated into clinical practice, being able to professionally and timely address hot topics like capacity for consent that are frequent issues that can "paralyze" the hospital activities (15). Refolo et al. analyzed another face of the term "risk": the risk of aggressive behavior based on genetic predisposition (16). Aggressivity is an issue of public interest both in hospital and common social contexts, and the potential role of genes in risk profiling has a potential dual use that should lead to strong ethical barriers (16). Finally, Aurilio et al. discussed the birthrelated long bone fractures in healthy newborns, an example of an adverse event that can be both due to unavoidable factors and to human errors, with the compliance with best practices and prevention policies being cornerstone of medico-legal defense (17). In conclusion, in medicine there is no such thing as a rigid dichotomic difference between errors and proper conducts, but there is a risk density entangled with medical services that can be addressed/neglected, inflated/deflated, defined/left unknown. Hunting for manipulable variables in the unknown and improving the management of the risks are the real keywords of the papers of this special issue. To err is not only human anymore, but only humans can envision the future in healthcare and tailor new strategies to make it safe for all the stakeholders.All the authors contributed equally.

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