educational value of morbidity and mortality committee in a hospital setting

ABSTRACT

The Morbidity and Mortality Committee [MMC] review has a great educational value for physicians and medical students. In addition, it has a great impact on health improvement and healthcare delivery. All hospitals in Bahrain should establish an MMC to update their physicians and improve their services. The primary goal of reporting and reviewing morbidities and mortalities is to enhance patients' safety, care and prevent possible sentinel and adverse events. It is expected that hospital morbidities and mortalities would increase as the average human lifespan is increasing. Preventable morbidity or mortality could be due to iatrogenesis, human errors, and negligence. Codman, in the early 1900s, lost his staff privileges at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston because he initiated Morbidity and Mortality Conferences [MMC]. His effort was resisted by all surgeons for economic reasons. The first recognized MMC was held in 1935. MMC use is now mandated by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in human medicine. MMC educational value could be shared through presentation and error/s analysis, dissemination of information. In a teaching hospital, mandatory attendance of MMCs is an essential requirement of training. Members of the MMC should be familiar with Root Cause Analysis; the objective of which is to identify factors that contribute to adverse events. The common goal is to gain insight into causes, describe the adverse event, then ask "why" it happened; continue to ask "why" until the root cause is identified [may take more or less than five "whys"]. It is essential to maintain focus on the process and not the personalities. In many countries and several medical institutions, MMCs have been embedded within the medical curriculum for medical training. Regular hospital morbidity and mortality meetings are educational tools useful for assessing the quality of care and patient safety