The Ottawa M&M Model:

A Guide to Enhancing Morbidity and Mortality Rounds Quality

Authors:
Lisa Calder, MD MSc FRCPC
Edmund Kwok, MD MSc MHA FRCPC
Adam Cwinn, MD MSc FRCPC
Jason Frank, MD MA(Ed) FRCPC
Jim Worthington, MD FRCPC

Version 1.0
August 30, 2012
 A Guide to Enhancing Morbidity & Mortality Rounds Quality

Objective:

To assist with appropriate case selection, analysis and creation of bottom lines to enhance the
quality of morbidity and mortality (M&M) Rounds

The goal of M&M rounds is to discuss cases of adverse outcomes which provide lessons in
terms of cognitive errors made or identify system issues that need to be addressed. Rare
diagnoses, fascinomas are reserved for other resident case-based rounds and while they
provide stimulating discussion, they are not appropriate for M&M rounds. Ultimately, the aim is
to prevent future adverse outcomes and improve quality of care.

The Ottawa Hospital prides itself on a non-blame culture where errors can be openly
acknowledged. It is recognized that medicine is challenging and that errors and adverse events
are inevitable. The goal is to improve care by sharing and examining our collective experiences.

Case Selection

It is ideal for presenters to select their own recent cases.

Case criteria must have all 3 of the following:

1. Adverse outcome
a. death, disability, harm or injury
b. near miss (potential harm avoided) e.g. patient given incorrect medication due to
lack of appropriate labelling of syringe or method in which drugs are stored
potential for harm but patient ultimately had good outcome
2. Preventable
3. Lessons to be learned about cognitive or system issues

How can you find a good M&M case?

Cases identified on the Patient Safety Learning System (PSLS)
Cases which caused you to think about them long after they occurred
Cases where you were provided follow-up from a colleague
Cases which were highlighted to you by head of department or the coroner
Cases which highlight a recurring system issue

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Case Analysis

When analysing your M&M rounds case, consider the case from 2 perspectives (see Appendix A
for further details):
1. Were there any cognitive issues on your part that contributed to the outcome?
2. Were there any system issues which contributed to the outcome?

Another approach to case analysis could be using the following checklist considering your
actions and that of the whole team involved in patient care (see Appendix B for further details on
each item):

Department Specific:
1. Were there any patient factors that increased this patients risk for harm? Yes No
2. Were there any issues with communication with outside facilities? Yes No
3. Were there any cognitive issues (see table 1)? Yes No
4. Were there any contributing skill-set errors (see Appendix 1)? Yes No
5. Were there any task-based errors(see Appendix 1)? Yes No
6. Were there any issues of personal impairment? Yes No
7. Did teamwork failure (see Appendix 1) contribute to the outcome? Yes No
8. Were there any local environmental contributors? Yes No
9. Were there any hospital-wide contributors(see Appendix 1)? Yes No
10. Were there any hospital administration contributors? Yes No
(checklist based upon Cosby et al 2008, see Appendix 4)

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, describe what the issues were

M&M Bottom Line

We suggest that each case have concrete bottom lines created that summarize cognitive and
system issues which are suitable for action by the department (see Appendix C for example).
When drawing lessons from your M&M rounds case, consider concrete changes that could be
made:
1. Any cognitive de-biasing strategies (see resources for details)
2. Education around evidence, practice guidelines, policies, procedures (use of simulation)
3. Changes to the system and how the department works*
4. Ways that the adverse outcome could have been mitigated or harm reduced
*these have the highest likelihood of preventing recurrence of an adverse outcome

Be wary of concluding we should try harder next time. This is unlikely to bring about any
changes.

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In order to maximize the impact of M&M rounds, consider reviewing these bottom lines at your
departmental quality and safety committee and prioritizing them for action.

Tips for your Presentation:

Consider the following time outline:

o 10 minutes for review of the case and state of evidence on current management
o 10 minutes for case analysis in terms of cognitive and system issues
o 10 minutes for discussion, identified issues and actions

Remember this is M&M rounds not Grand Rounds!

Please remember these rounds are confidential and we need to endeavour to protect the
privacy of patients. No patient initials, dates, times or names of staff involved should
appear in your presentation.
Think about whether you can make your rounds multi-disciplinary. Email the nurse
manager and ask them to invite nurses involved in the case. Would it be helpful to have
a pharmacist or social worker present? Are there consultants from other services you
could invite? Other allied health members? Pathologist?
Involving patients and/or their families can be powerful in M&M rounds. If this seems
appropriate, speak to the Head of Department first to help you coordinate with Patient
Care Relations and ensure it is done in a sensitive manner.
Consider briefly discussing your selected case one week ahead of time with a colleague
to confirm you have identified a clear cognitive or system issue.

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M&M Rounds Process Improvement - Role of the Facilitator

1. Pre-M&M rounds: To touch base with presenters 1 week prior to offer feedback on case
selection and slides
2. At M&M Rounds:
a. Very brief intro mentioning the ongoing study and emphasizing confidentiality
b. Maintain timeliness reminder to presenters (ensure presentation starts at on time
and ensure enough time for discussion)
c. Facilitate discussion
i. Highlight cognitive and system issues
ii. Seek consensus on bottom line identify 2-3 key points and emphasize
1. Remember that these should be blame free
2. Focus on recommendations that can be actioned
3. Try and avoid try harder type of bottom lines or more training
but seek out system changes
3. Post-M&M rounds:
a. Create M&M rounds bottom line using template (remove presenters names) and
disseminate to departmental members, RNs, allied health and senior management

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Table 1. Classification Scheme for Cognitive Dispositions to Respond (CDRs)
Error of over-attachment to a particular diagnosis
Anchoring: the tendency to perceptually lock on to salient features in the patients initial
presentation too early in the diagnostic process and failing to adjust this initial
impression in the light of later information. This CDR might be severely compounded by
the confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias: the tendency to look for confirming evidence to support a diagnosis
rather than look for disconfirming evidence to refute it, despite the latter being more
persuasive and definitive.
Premature closure: a powerful CDR accounting for a high proportion of missed
diagnoses. It is the tendency to apply premature closure to the decision making process,
accepting a diagnosis before it has been fully verified. The consequences of the bias are
reflected in the maxim: When the diagnosis is made, the thinking stops.
Error due to failure to consider alternative diagnoses
Multiple alternatives bias: a multiplicity of options on a differential diagnosis might
lead to significant conflict and uncertainty. The process might be simplified by reverting
to a smaller subset with which the physician is familiar, but might result in inadequate
consideration of other possibilities. One such strategy is the three diagnosis differential:
it is probably A, but it might be B, or I dont know (C). Although this approach has
some heuristic value, if the disease falls in the C category and is not pursued adequately,
it minimizes the chance that serious diagnoses are made.
Representativeness restraints: drive the diagnostician toward looking for prototypical
manifestations of disease: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck,
then it is a duck. Yet, restraining decision making along these pattern recognition lines
leads to atypical variants being missed.
Search satisficing: reflects the universal tendency to call off a search once something is
found. Co-morbidities, second foreign bodies, other fractures, and co-ingestants in
poisoning may all be missed.
Error due to inheriting someone elses thinking
Diagnosis momentum: once diagnostic labels are attached to patients they tend to
become stickier and stickier. Through intermediaries (patients, paramedics, nurses,
physicians) what might have started as a possibility gathers increasing momentum until it
becomes definite, and all other possibilities are excluded.
Framing effect: how diagnosticians see things might be strongly influenced by the way
in which the problem is framed, e.g. physicians' perceptions of risk to the patient may be
strongly influenced by whether the outcome is expressed in terms of the possibility that
the patient might die or might live. In terms of diagnosis, physicians should be aware of
how patients, nurses, and other physicians frame potential outcomes and contingencies to
the clinical problem to them.
Bandwagon effect: the tendency for people to believe and do certain things because
many others are doing so. Group-think is an example, and it can have a disastrous impact
on team decision making and patient care.

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Errors in prevalence perception or estimation
Availability bias: the disposition to judge things as being more likely, or frequently
occurring, if they readily come to mind. Thus, recent experience with a disease might
inflate the likelihood of its being diagnosed. Conversely, if a disease has not been seen
for a long time (is less available), it might be underdiagnosed.
Base-rate neglect: the tendency to ignore the true prevalence of a disease, either
inflating or reducing its base-rate, and distorting Bayesian reasoning. However, in some
cases clinicians might (consciously or otherwise) deliberately inflate the likelihood of
disease, such as in the strategy of "rule out worst-case scenario" to avoid missing a rare
but significant diagnosis.
Hindsight bias: knowing the outcome might profoundly influence perception of past
events and prevent a realistic appraisal of what actually occurred. In the context of
diagnostic error, it may compromise learning through either an underestimation (illusion
of failure) or overestimation (illusion of control) of the decision makers abilities.
Errors involving patient characteristics or presentation context
Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to be judgmental and blame patients for
their illnesses (dispositional causes) rather than examine the circumstances (situational
factors) that might have been responsible. In particular, psychiatric patients, minorities,
and other marginalized groups tend to suffer from this CDR. Cultural differences exist in
terms of the respective weights attributed to dispositional and situational causes.
Triage cueing: the triage process occurs throughout the health care system, from the
self-triage of patients to the selection of a specialist by the referring physician. In the
emergency department, triage is a formal process that results in patients being sent in
particular directions, which cues their subsequent management. Many CDRs are initiated
at triage, leading to the maxim: "Geography is destiny." Once a patient is referred to a
specific discipline, the bias within that discipline to look at the patient only from their
own perspective is referred to as deformation professionnelle.
Yin-yang out: when patients have been subjected to exhaustive and unavailing
diagnostic investigations, they are said to have been worked up the yin-yang. The yin-
yang out is the tendency to believe that nothing further can be done to throw light on the
dark place where, and if, any definitive diagnosis resides for the patient, i.e., the
physician is let out of further diagnostic effort. This might prove ultimately to be true, but
to adopt the strategy at the outset is fraught with the chance of a variety of errors.

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Errors associated with physician affect, personality, or decision style
Commission bias: results from the obligation toward beneficence, in that harm to the
patient can only be prevented by active intervention. It is the tendency toward action
rather than inaction. It is more likely in over-confident physicians. Commission bias is
less common than omission bias.
Omission bias: the tendency toward inaction and rooted in the principle of non-
maleficence. In hindsight, events that have occurred through the natural progression of a
disease are more acceptable than those that may be attributed directly to the action of the
physician. The bias might be sustained by the reinforcement often associated with not
doing anything, but it may prove disastrous. Omission biases typically outnumber
commission biases.
Outcome bias: the tendency to opt for diagnostic decisions that will lead to good
outcomes, rather than those associated with bad outcomes, thereby avoiding chagrin
associated with the latter. It is a form of value bias in that physicians might express a
stronger likelihood in their decision-making for what they hope will happen rather than
for what they really believe might happen. This may result in serious diagnoses being
minimized.
Overconfidence/underconfidence: a universal tendency to believe we know more than
we do. Overconfidence reflects a tendency to act on incomplete information, intuitions,
or hunches. Too much faith is placed in opinion instead of carefully gathered evidence.
Zebra retreat: occurs when a rare diagnosis (zebra) figures prominently on the
differential diagnosis but the physician retreats from it for various reasons: perceived
inertia in the system and barriers to obtaining special or costly tests; self-consciousness
and underconfidence about entertaining a remote and unusual diagnosis and gaining a
reputation for being esoteric; the fear of being seen as unrealistic and wasteful of
resources; under- or overestimating the base-rate for the diagnosis; the ED might be very
busy and the anticipated time and effort to pursue the diagnosis might dilute the
physicians conviction; team members may exert coercive pressure to avoid wasting the
teams time; inconvenience of the time of day or weekend and difficulty getting access to
specialists; unfamiliarity with the diagnosis might make the physician less likely to go
down an unfamiliar road; fatigue or other distractions may tip the physician toward
retreat.

Adapted from: Campbell SG, Croskerry P, Bond WF. Profiles in patient safety: a perfect storm in the
emergency department. AcadEmerg Med. 2007; 14:743-749.

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Appendix A: Terminology

Cognitive issue: a specific pitfall in clinical decision making. Can refer to cognitive dispositions
to respond (see table 1)

System issue: a problem beyond the individual clinician or team which pertains to how an
emergency department operates

Examples of ED-based system issues:

- Prehospital care (coordination, protocol adherence, lack of needed protocols)

- Triage (accuracy of triage, impact of under-triage, protocol violations, insufficient triage

rules)

- Wait times (impact of delays in offloading, triage, registration, awaiting investigations or

consults)

- Investigations (availability of diagnostic imaging, timeliness and accuracy of results,

follow-up of modified final reports, delay in laboratory testing results, availability of
appropriate laboratory testing, followup of positive cultures)

- Therapy ( availability of medications, medication errors, procedural errors or

complications)

- Consultations (communication, delay in response, appropriateness of service, admission

algorithm issues, impact of decisions on return ED visits)

- Discharge planning (lack of appropriate follow-up, delay in follow-up, communication

issues around follow up or reasons to return)

- Shiftwork (impact of fatigue, timing of decisions relative to when you were on shift (i.e.
beginning vs end of shift decisions)

- Crowding (impact of lack of beds, long wait times on decision making)

- Public/occupational health (people other than the patient, including health care workers
are placed at risk)

Patient factors: any communication barrier (due to language, intoxication, obtunded, critically
ill), behaviour eliciting affective bias

Skill-set error: procedural complications or errors in interpretation of ECGs, laboratory or

diagnostic imaging tests

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Task-based error: failure of routine behaviours such as regular bedside care, attention to vital
signs and appropriate monitoring often reflects work overload

Personal impairment: personal factors that impact job performance e.g. fatigue, illness,
emotional distress

Teamwork failure: breakdown in communication between team members, across shifts, between
teams, and across specialty boundaries or due to inappropriate assignment of unqualified
personnel to a given task this includes resident and student supervision

Local ED environmental contributors: e.g. appropriate staffing, stocking, functional equipment,

sufficient policies & guidelines

Hospital-wide contributors: e.g. access to patient services, consultants, inpatient beds, specialty
treatments

Hospital administration contributors: e.g. budgetary constraints, hospital policies & guidelines

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Appendix B: Analysis Tools

Perspectives of Patient Care

Patient: Doctor Patient: Healthcare Team

Patient : System

Taken from: Cosby KS. Framework for classifying factors that contribute to error in the Emergency
Department. Ann Emerg Med. 2003;42(6):815-823.

See also: Cosby KS, et al. Characteristics of patient care management problems identified in ED M&M
during 15 years. Ann Emerg Med. 2008;51(3):251-61.

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 ACCIDENT MODEL
Pre-Event Event! Post-Event

ED EVENT MODEL
PreHospital ED Post ED Course (Both admissions and
discharges)

Pre-ED Phase

Taken from: Cosby KS. Framework for classifying factors that contribute to error in the Emergency
Department. Ann Emerg Med. 2003;42(6):815-823.

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 PROCESS MAPPING MODELS FOR ANALYSIS

Process Mapping the ED

Decision Prolonged
Making Wait Time
For bed
Decision Affective
Making Error
Violation
Cognitive Procedural Inadequate
Producing
Error Error Admitting
Triage Behaviors
Plan
Cueing Authority
Radiology Medication ADMIT
Gradients
EMS Error Error

Patient
Presentation
Triage ASSESSMENT DIAGNOSIS TREATMENT MANAGEMENT - DISPOSITION

Inadequate
Report Teamwork RACQITO Discharge
Information
Delays Errors Plan
Gaps
ED Design Transitions DISCHARGE
Orphaned
Ergonomics Laboratory Interruptions of care
Patients
Error Distractions
Overcrowding
Fatigue Follow up
and Failures
Shiftwork

Process Mapping of Sources of ED Error: The overall process is presented as

a linear model. Generally, green nodes are individual and red nodes systemic. Sources
of error may occur in parallel or at multiple stages in the sequence, often overlap with
each other, and/ or are additive in their overall effect on patient safety

Reproduced from: Croskerry P, et al. Process Improvement and Patient Safety in the Emergency Department. In:
Marx J, Hockberger R, Walls R. Rosens Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 6th ed. Mosby;St
Louis. 2006:3119-3127.

Process Mapping for Laboratory Testing:

Pre-Analytic (obtaining specimen, labeling, getting it to test site)

Analytic (performance of test)

Post-Analytic (reporting and interpreting result)

Process Mapping for Medication Ordering and Delivery:

Prescribing Transcribing Dispensing Administering Monitoring

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Taken from: Gordon D. Schiff, SeijeoungKim,Richard Abrams et al. Diagnosing Diagnosis Errors:
Lessons from a Multi-institutional Collaborative Project. Advances in Patient Safety 2005; 2:255-278

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 Contributing Factors to Diagnostic Errors

Patient Factors (genotype, unable to comply, inadequate social support)

Disease Factors

Clinician Factors

Cognitive Factors

Incomplete information

Mis-information

Perceptual errors

Cognitive biases, heuristics, logical fallacies

Teamwork Failure

Communication

System or process failure

Wider community issues; regulatory issues; access to care.

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Zhang and Patels model focuses on systems and human factors.

From Zhang J, Patel VL, Johnson TR, Shortliffe EH.A cognitive taxonomy of medical errors.J Biomed
Inform. 2004; 37(3): 193-204.

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Appendix C: Examples of M&M bottom lines:

Massive Hemoptysis & DNR Status

Actively seek resuscitation status of any arresting patient in
the ED
There is room for improvement in our current process of
CPR designation
Crash intubation in the setting of massive hemoptysis is best
performed in the OR; a double lumen tube is a poor second.
Action items: 1. DEM CPC Q&S to discuss the
development of a guideline on the management of massive
hemoptysis in the ED.
2. DEM CPC Q&S and leadership (MDs & RNs) to discuss
enhancing the identification and communication of DNR
status of patients in the ED, including admitted patients
boarded in the ED.

Rib Fractures
Epidural use in patients with rib fractures can decrease
mortality, especially in patients with > 5 fractured ribs who
are > 65 years of age
Positive Pressure Ventilation (not just invasive) can be an
effective pain management strategy in patients with multiple
rib fractures. The key is early initiation and strong RT support
Be proactive in pain management of patients with rib
fractures
Potential regional partnership with trauma, ICU anaesthesia
related to rib fractures

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