Cover Up Culture

One of the recommendations for healthcare organizations to employ in an effort to reduce the number of errors is to advocate for voluntary error reporting nationally while conducting research and developing tools for patient safety. This way, information about errors can be gathered and prevented from reoccurring at health care sites and by health care providers. Voluntary error reporting will act as a warning of potential or actual errors and suggest ways to avoid them in the future.

Healthcare workers are not the only ones fearful of exposing medical errors. The medical institutes themselves operate behind a wall of silence. The IOM first recommended a national medical error reporting system in 1999 and despite attempts by then President Clinton, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association successfully lobbied against it (Dyess, 2009). As of 2009, only 20 states have a mandatory medical error reporting system and only a fraction of estimated

In healthcare systems, there is a concept of fair and just culture. That concept is important to manage the risk. In any organization, errors can happen. But, the best first tool to understand the error is to report it when it happens. Reporting error in healthcare contributes to minimize the risk of recurring.

It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).

This documentary video is very informative and very useful as eye-opener to all that works in the healthcare industry. John Hopkins patient safety expert have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. This large number, victims of medical error, leads to a stigma that people became questioning and doubting the capabilities of healthcare providers resulting on losing trust. This video “Chasing Zero” is a reminder that all nurses, doctors and all the people that works in healthcare industries should be very cautious on the care they provide to patients. A single error can hurt and worst, it can kill someone. This video made me realize as a nurse, that anyone can make a big mistake regardless of years

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

It is critical in today’s health care field to avoid harm and ensure that patient safety in health care environment, especially with the attention of medical mistakes little is known about the importance of avoidable harm to public. The mistakes that happen in the healthcare setting are rarely the fault of individual workers, but usually the result of problems within the system that they work.

Millions of Americans surrender to conditions that are both preventable and manageable annually. Besides chronic diseases, researchers have identified that the third leading cause of death in America is the errors conducted by professional medical practitioners. While medicine is a highly considered field, some of the practices that contribute to the errors observed include the absence of patient safety, poorly coordinated care, and inefficient healthcare quality improvement. Significant steps that can be taken to reduce deaths caused by medical errors include good communication, cooperation, use of advanced technology and implementation of quality healthcare among

Mistakes and errors caused by medical providers happen in the healthcare field, resulting in punitive actions against the provider. As cited by Geffken-Eddy (2011) studies by the Institute of Medicine have shown that punishment will only lead to more medical errors or providers not reporting their

Since the 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), To Err is Human, there have been many new efforts and initiatives to reduce the incidence of medical errors. While some people argued the report exaggerated the magnitude of the problem, others were concerned about the annual number of preventable medical errors.1 Medical errors include, but not limited to medication errors, hospital acquired infections, surgical mistakes, and communication failure.2

It was deemed safer to give nursing students the capability to make potentially fatal mistakes on plastic simulation men and women as opposed to real humans during our clinical rotation. As with all technology the equipment will get better and will continue to be increasingly more reliable. The newest simulation robots sweat, cry, turn cyanotic, and speak. But as with other robotics, nurse leaders will be challenged to figure out how much simulation may be too much (Huston, 2013). Is too much technology going to hinder the art of nursing?

Disclosing medical errors is considered necessary by patients and practitioners. They are advised to disclose in the form of an apology when necessary and appropriate. When a medical error causes damage to the patient, it seen as not acceptable because a patient goes for treatment in order to get better not to get worse therefore it calls for the situation to be addressed. When a medical error is not disclosed, the fellow peers who have witnessed the error must decide whether they should remain silent and keep the error to themselves or reveal the error to the higher up, although it would be in good faith to report the medical error to a higher up, unless it has caused harm or long-term damage to the patient. (Youngson. p. 69) There are many hospitals that the practitioners keep the errors made to themselves and do not disclose the medical errors to the families of patients or the patients themselves. Medical errors become a topic of conversation if the family of a patient or the patient themselves become aware about the error. Medical errors are something that should be disclosed in a good faith manner

In today's modern world with plenty of technology, it is hard to believe that we cannot figure out how to reduce Medical errors. The issue of medical error is not new in health care organizations. It has been in spot light since 1990's, when government did research on sudden increase in number of death in the hospitals. According to Lester, H., & Tritter, J. (2001), "Medical error is an actual or potential serious lapse in the standard of care provided to a patient, or harm caused to a patient through the performance of a health service or health care professional." Medical errors

Reporting errors can strengthen the processes of care and also enhance the quality of care. To effectively avoid further errors that can cause harm to patients, improvements must be made on the incidents or events reported in reporting system. Reporting errors can help the organizations better understand what happened, identify the factors that cause the occurrence of errors or incidents, determine its frequency and predict whether it could happen again and find an intervention to prevent or to

The concern with not educating trainees before graduation is that incident and near misses tend to remain underreported because of the perpetuating negative culture surrounding error reporting. This in turn hinders learning from the event and stifles growth toward voluntary sharing of broken processes and system failures (Barnsteiner, 2011). The current focus on Quality Improvement is to provide high reliable care with little to zero risks by including the “combined and unceasing efforts of everyone—healthcare professionals, patients and their families, researchers, payers, planners and educators—to make changes that will lead to better patient outcomes (health), better system performance (care) and better professional development” (IHI, 2015).