Keeping Clients Safe: Error and Safety in Behavioral Health Settings

Course overview

This course focuses on five major components of the problem of medical error for behavioral health professionals. The first section describes the severity of the problem of medical error in the U.S. and outlines the evolution of the patient safety movement. The second section introduces concepts from human factors research that are essential to understanding the complexity of patient safety, and also outlines the importance of a culture of safety. The third section presents three basic strategies to reduce harm: Safety briefings, root cause analysis, and full disclosure. A fourth section addresses three error-prone situations that are common in behavioral health settings: Inadequate assessment of suicide risk, failure to comply with mandatory reporting laws, and failure to detect medical conditions that have psychological symptoms. The final section describes the psychosocial needs of survivors of medical error and their families. This course is intended for social workers, mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and advanced practice and psychiatric nurses.