A new research was conducted which found that nurses generally don’t prefer to speak about their incompetent colleagues which could further lead to bigger mistakes putting the patient’s life under considerable risk.

Though many hospitals have taken measures to reduce medical errors through checklists, patient handoff protocols, computerized order entry systems and automated medication-dispensing systems but at the same time the study found that more than one third participants of the study had witnessed incompetence which had led to an actual harm to a patient.

The researchers included 6,500 nurses across the U. S. and the findings of the study highlighted that 80% of the nurses had concerns about three "undiscussable" issues related to their collogues: dangerous shortcuts, incompetence and disrespect.

The third issue is believed to be the reason why more than half of the study participants could not get others to listen to them or value their professional opinion. They study also found that only 16% of ignored nurses could confront their disrespectful collogues.

David Maxfield, Vice President of research at VitalSmarts and lead researcher of the study said, “The report confirms that tools don't create safety; people do. Safety tools will never compensate for communication failures in the hospital”.