Barriers and Motivators for Making Error Reports from Family Medicine Offices: A Report from the American Academy of Family Physicians National Research Network (AAFP NRN)

Article Figures & Data

Download figure
Open in new tab
Figure 1.
A model for an error reporting decision making and support system in a family medicine office.

Table 1.

Focus Group Participant and Practice Characteristics

Focus group participants (n = 139)
Primary role
Physician, PA, NP	45
RN, LPN	21
Medical Assistant	20
Office Manager	5
Front Office	30
Medical Records/billing	13
Other	2
Missing	3
Gender
Male	31
Female	108
Ethnicity
Hispanic	14
Non-Hispanic	113
Missing	12
Race
White	101
African American	9
Asian American	3
Native American	3
Other	14 (Hispanic)
Missing	9
Years at practice (average)	5
Age in years (average)	39
Participating practices (n = 8)
Residency	4
Non-residency	4
Rural	2
Non-rural	6
Community Health Center	1
Non-community Health Ctr	7
Electronic Health Record (EHR)
No	5
Partial EHR	2
Full EHR	1
Number of physicians
1 to 2	2
3 to 5	2
6 to 10	0
11 to 15	2
16+	2
Number of staff
1 to 5	1
6 to 15	2
16+	5

Table 2.

Barriers to Error Reporting

Reporting Factors	Category from Participants	Total Groups^*	Total Practices^†
Burden of effort	Time constraints	16 (9 S, 5 P, 2 M)	8
	Forgetfulness	9 (5 S, 3 P, 1 M)	6
	Need to respond to error	1 (P)	1
	Problems with computers	3 (2 S, 1 P)	1
	Information not readily available	3 (1 S, 1 P, 1 M)	3
Clarity of request	Error properties
	repetitive, frequent	5 (3 S, 2 P)	3
	unlikely to recur	1 (S)	1
	outside problem	1 (S)	1
	Reporter properties
	Doesn’t apply to my job	3 (3 S)	3
	Questions unclear	2 (2 P)	2
	Believe someone else will report	2 (1 P, 1 M)	2
Perceived benefit	Reporter properties
	Emotional state	2 (1 S, 1 P)	2
	Not required by job	1 (S)	1
	No perceived benefit	1 (S)	1
Properties of the error	Error is not serious	7 (4 S, 2 P, 1 M)	5
	Reporter made the error	2 (2 P)	2

* Total groups, number of groups in which a category was mentioned by a participant; S, staff group; P, physician group; M, mixed group of physicians and staff.
† Total practices, number of practices in which a category was mentioned by a participant.

Table 3.

Motivators for Making Error Reports

Reporting factors	Category from Participants	Total Groups^*	Total Practices^†
Burden of effort	Dedicated report maker	2 (2 P)	2
	‘Cheerleader’ in practice	1 (S)	1
Clarity of request	System problem	2 (2 P)	2
	Anonymity	3 (1 S, 2 P)	3
	Reporter properties
	Emotional state	5 (2 S, 3 P)	3
	Responses to report
	Get feedback	3 (3P)	3
	Get tangible benefit	6 (3 S, 3P)	5
Properties of the error	Error is serious	4 (2 S, 1P)	2
	Reporter made the error	2 (2P)	2

* Total groups, number of groups in which a category was mentioned by a participant; S, staff group; P, physician group; M, mixed group of physicians and staff.
† Total practices, number of practices in which a category was mentioned by a participant.