Clinical Communication Ontology for Medical Errors

Abstract

Clinical communication failures caused 60% of sentinel events reported by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The difficulties of communication have been the primary cause of errors leading to patients' death. For analyzing medical error events, uncovering the patterns of clinical communication, this paper reports the design and development of clinical communication ontology. The ontology contains eight axes and was validated using ten medical error cases, where communication was the main factor. The coding process demonstrates that the ontology can be used as a guideline for future medical error reporting system, through which the root cause of medical error due to communication will be revealed in a clear pattern. This ontology contributes to the generation of proper interventions and effective strategies for reducing medical errors.