Event Reporting at Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic's commitment to quality and safety is best summarized in the words of one of Mayo Clinic's founders, Dr. William J. Mayo: "The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered." Long before the Minnesota Adverse Health Care Event Reporting Law was passed in 2003, Mayo Clinic reviewed cases in which an unanticipated outcome occurred. Mayo Clinic was among the first medical centers to review unanticipated outcomes and develop preventative measures to reduce the potential for reoccurrences.

Today, our commitment to internal review is even stronger. We are working to prevent adverse events by constantly reviewing and improving our processes and procedures. Our goal is to never have one of these events happen in our facilities, and to contribute in the wider medical community to preventing errors by training medical students and sharing improvements that could be used to prevent them.

As you will see by the data on the Minnesota Department of Health's Patient Safety Web site, Mayo Clinic's teams perform thousands of operations each year and see hundreds of thousands of patients. Unfortunately, in very rare cases, an adverse event does occur. Because our main concern is for the patient, the first thing we do in response to an unintended event is meet with the patient and family members to explain what happened and to discuss what could be done to reverse or alleviate any negative consequences. We believe that open and honest communication about these events is crucial in maintaining trust with our patients.

We take great pride in the care we provide, and have worked hard to develop measures to keep errors from happening.