Module 12: Critical Thinking Assignment

Medical Malpractice (110 points)

Create a PowerPoint presentation detailing the standard operating procedure in dealing with “near misses” in your facility. Be sure to address the following issues:

• Examine any applicable rules and regulations pertaining to malpractice in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Detail a specific procedure in dealing with the reporting of medical errors in a healthcare facility.

Your presentation should meet the following structural requirements:

• Organized, using professional themes and transitions.
• It should consist of nine slides, not including the title and reference slides.
• Each slide must provide detailed speaker’s notes, with a minimum of 100 words per slide. Notes must draw from and cite relevant reference materials.
• Provide support for your statements with in-text citations from a minimum of six scholarly articles. Two of these sources may be from the class readings, textbook, or lectures, but the other four must be external. The Saudi Digital Library is a good place to find these references.
• Follow APA 7^th edition and Saudi Electronic University writing standards.

You are strongly encouraged to submit all assignments to the Turnitin Originality Check prior to submitting them to your instructor for grading. If you are unsure how to submit an assignment to the Originality Check tool, review the Turnitin Originality Check Student Guide.

Sample Answer (Preview)

The following is a partial sample answer showing the approach, structure and referencing expected for this brief. It covers approximately 25–30% of the full nine-slide presentation (about 900 words of speaker notes). Sources are cited in APA 7th edition style.

Slide 1: Why Near Misses Matter

• A near miss is an error caught before it reaches the patient
• Near misses outnumber harmful events
• Each one is free information about a weak point in the system

Speaker notes:

This presentation sets out our facility’s standard operating procedure for near misses. They matter because they share the same causes as harmful events but happen far more often. Barach and Small (2000) show that industries such as aviation improved safety by collecting and analysing near misses, because these events can be discussed openly without the blame that follows harm. Reason (2000) argues that errors are best understood as the result of weaknesses in systems rather than the carelessness of individuals. A near miss shows us where those weaknesses are before a patient is hurt, so every report is a chance to fix the system cheaply.

Slide 2: Malpractice Rules and Regulations in Saudi Arabia

• Law of Practicing Healthcare Professions, Royal Decree M/59 (1426H)
• Article 26: duty of due care; Article 27: forms of malpractice
• Article 41: compulsory malpractice insurance
• Articles 33–34: Sharia Medical Panel

Speaker notes:

The main malpractice statute is the Law of Practicing Healthcare Professions (2005). Article 26 requires every professional to exercise due care in line with established professional standards. Article 27 makes a professional liable for malpractice that harms a patient, including treatment errors, inadequate follow-up, lack of expected skill and failure to consult. Article 41 makes malpractice insurance compulsory for physicians and dentists in public and private institutions. Articles 33 and 34 set up the Sharia Medical Panel to hear malpractice claims. Because liability under Article 27 depends on harm to a patient, reporting a near miss does not in itself expose staff to a compensation claim, and this should be explained to them.

Slide 3: Defining and Recognising a Near Miss in Our Facility

• A near miss is an incident that did not reach the patient
• Examples: wrong drug caught at the bedside, wrong-patient label spotted before a sample is taken
• Every near miss is reported, whoever caught it

Speaker notes:

WHO (2020) recommends that reporting systems capture near misses as well as harmful incidents. In our facility, staff report a near miss whenever an error is intercepted before it reaches the patient…

[End of preview] The remaining sections are included in the full solution, which is available on order. They cover the rest of Slide 3 and Slides 4–9: the step-by-step reporting procedure (immediate actions, e-OVR reporting, triage, root cause analysis, feedback and learning), a just and non-punitive reporting culture, confidentiality, monitoring indicators and the conclusion, with full speaker notes for each slide.

References

Barach, P., & Small, S. D. (2000). Reporting and preventing medical mishaps: Lessons from non-medical near miss reporting systems. BMJ, 320(7237), 759–763. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7237.759

Law of Practicing Healthcare Professions, Royal Decree No. M/59 (2005) (Saudi Arabia). https://misa.gov.sa/app/uploads/2025/07/Law-of-Practicing-Healthcare-Professions.pdf

Reason, J. (2000). Human error: Models and management. BMJ, 320(7237), 768–770. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7237.768

World Health Organization. (2020). Patient safety incident reporting and learning systems: Technical report and guidance. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240010338