Launched
last February, the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ) and an editorial team at the University
of California-San Francisco have created the nation’s
first peer-reviewed, Web-based medical journal that
will showcase patient safety lessons drawn from real-life
cases of medical errors.
WebM&M, short for Morbidity and Mortality Rounds
on the Web, is designed to provide an open and blame-free
environment in which health care professionals can
anonymously share cases of medical errors.
Authors of cases chosen for posting will receive an
honorarium while retaining anonymity. Each month five
interesting cases of medical errors and patient safety
problems will be posted in the categories of medicine,
surgery/anesthesiology,
obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics and psychiatry.
Each case will be followed by expert commentary and
a forum for readers’ comments. Every month,
one of these cases will be expanded as a “Spotlight
Case” that features reader polls, quizzes and
other multimedia elements, which may lead to continuing
medical education credits.
For the first two months of the “Surgery/Anesthesiology”
section, anesthesiologist Paul R. Barach, M.D., from
the University of Miami, provides commentary on submitted
cases.
The WebM&M site can be found at <www.webmm.ahrq.gov>.
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