Planning for Team Disclosure
Once the team has openly discussed errors, they should plan for team disclosure of the error to the patient and/or patient's representative. They should advocate for full disclosure of the errors that impacted the patient. The team should be prepared to explain how errors occured. However, it is not always immediately apparent how an error occured. It is ok to plan to tell the patient and/or family that this is still under investigation.
It is important to plan who will lead the discussion, and what role each team member will play.
The team should also discuss what questions the family might have, and prepare reasonable responses. One question to anticipate from the family will be "who will pay for the treatment that is now needed because of the error?". Hospitals and other medical systems will often be able to offer some reparation, such as absorbing the medical bills resulting from the mistake. In this case, the hospital has not yet made that decision. You may state to the family "the hospital administration takes this very seriously and is scheduled to meet to address the cost issue soon".