Errors In Health Care: A Leading Causeju

In the United States alone there are 98,000 deaths per year caused by low quality health care (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2013, pg. 2). This statistic is disturbing because the errors that resulted in death were errors that were preventable. The intent of this chapter is to bring awareness to health care providers that are able to make a change in the quality of health care. In current practice patients are subjected to medication errors, preventable hospitalizations, premature death, and poor care provided due to racial, ethical, or low-income factors.

Atul Gawande in his article “When the Doctor Makes Mistakes” exposes the mystery, uncertainty and fallibility of medicine in true stories that involve real patients. In a society where attorneys protect hospitals and physicians from zealous trials from clients following medical errors, doctors make mistakes is a testimony that Gawande a representative of other doctors speak openly about failures within the medical fields. In this article, Gawande exposes those errors with an intention of showing the entire society and specifically those within the medicine field that when errors are hidden, learning is squelched and those within the system are provided with an opportunity to continue committing the same errors. What you find when you critically analyse Gawande, “When Doctors Make Mistakes essay is how messy and uncertain medicine turns out to be. Throughout the entire article you experience the havoc within the medicine field as the inexperienced doctor misapplies a central line in a patient.

One of the most critical factors which contribute to the number of preventable cases of healthcare harm is the culture of silence surrounding these cases. The fear of medical providers to report incidences is related to the possibility of punishment and liability due to a medical error (Discovery, 2010). The criminalization of some acts of medical error has resulted in job dismissal, criminal charges and jail time for some healthcare workers. This is despite the fact that the system they are working in helped to create the situation which led to the error in the first place. Human error, due to fatigue and system errors can result in deadly consequences, but by criminalizing the error it effectively shuts down the ability to correct the root problem. Healthcare workers, working at all levels within the medical system, can provide valuable input on how to improve the processes and prevent harm from occurring (Discovery, 2010).

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

According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, To Err Is Human, the majority of medical errors result from faulty systems and processes, not individuals (Hughes, 2008). However, due to processes that are inefficient and variable, multiple health insurance, differences in provider education and experience, and other factors that contribute to the complexity of health care the IOM has put together six aims of health care that is effective, safe, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable (Hughes, 2008).

Medical errors have adverse effect on health care organization structure because it put a question mark on health profession’s reputation. The medical error definitely can cause harm to the patient or even the death. Medical errors can happen anywhere in healthcare system: in hospitals, clinics, surgery rooms. Medical mistakes can arise from doctors, nurses, surgeons, hospital administration, and many others. Medical errors affect the health care organizational structure, culture, and social in many ways. Medication errors have severe direct and indirect effects on health care organizational structure, and culture is usually the outcome of breakdowns in a system of care. Many reasons can involve in medical errors such as, miscommunication

A hazard is the potential to harm life, health, property or environment and a risk is the chance of harm as a result of a hazard, sometimes these can be hard to identify but there are many ways to ensure you minimise injury or illness to workers in an organisation. Safety inspection is usually the first way of identifying a hazard which is having a safety representative to look around and ensure everything is safe. PCBUs’ and officers should look over any previous incidents or near misses to see if there are any hidden hazards. They should encourage all workers to report anything they feel is potentially dangerous and if something does result in an injury (minor or major) to report it straight away so they can have a look at it. A risk is the

Errors occur in health care as well as every other very complex system that involves human beings. The message in “To Err is Human”, by Archie Cochrane, was that preventing death and injury from medical errors requires dramatic, system wide changes. Health care professionals have customarily viewed errors as a sign of an individual’s incompetence or recklessness. As a result, rather than learning from such events and using information to improve safety and prevent new events, health care professionals have had difficulty admitting or even discussing adverse events often because they fear professional censure, administrative blame, lawsuits, or personal feelings of shame.

New innovations are being created every year to help improve and protect patients from reckless and preventable errors. As healthcare providers, it is our duty to provide care ethically and to do no harm to our patients. On the contrary, “the culture of cover-up” still continues to exist today and although technology and informatics has progressively increased quality care, it has not completely eradicated errors. Integrity is the key component for every healthcare provider, along with other characteristics. Therefore, disclosing medical errors with our patients is imperative and our patients and their families deserve to know what occurred during their time of care. Technology is not able to prevent every mishap that causes patients harm (Gibson & Singh, 2003). On the other hand, communication and learning from the mistake can. As Gibson and Singh (2003) so eloquently stated, “…wise people learn form their mistakes, and those who don’t are bound to repeat

(IOM) issued the 1999 report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health Care System”. The

Medical errors can be a significant threat to the the health of Americans and can lead to the downfall of a health care system. These errors can be anything from a data entry error or simply a patient’s information getting into the wrong hands. The importance of a health care system is to provide extraordinary care all while protecting the rights and information of their patient. A new generation of federal efforts emerged in order to address these concerns, in part through the effective use of information technology. Thus, the Health Information Exchange was born. The Health Information Exchange (HIE) is a system that allows health care information to be appropriately and securely shared electronically across organizations within a region,

I agree with you that under reporting medical errors compromise patient safety.  It is important to report mistakes not only to appropriately follow up with the affected patient but also the improve  the protocol if its needed.  I also think that fear plays a huge part on nurses not reporting errors. I think that they are afraid of the consequences or penalties for the errors. I enjoy reading your post.

Quality and safety initiatives are driving important changes in the U.S. health care delivery system. Quality in health care is defined as the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes are consistent with current professional knowledge (Nash & Goldfarb, 2006, p. 6). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, To Err is Human, states that most of the medical errors are resulted from system error and processes. Medical Errors account for 98,000 deaths per year in the US. They increase disability, costs, and decrease confidence in the US health care system (Pham, Aswani, Rosen, Lee, Huddle, Weeks, & Pronovost, 2012). And because of this, the IOM established six aims for improvement. These are safety (care should be as safe for patients in health care facilities as in their homes); effectiveness (the science and evidence behind health care should be applied and serve as the standard in the delivery of care); efficiency (care and service should be cost effective, and waste should be removed from the system); timeliness (patients should experience no waits or delays in receiving care and service); patient-centeredness (the system of care should revolve around the patient, respect patient preferences, and put the patient in control); and equity (unequal treatment should be a fact of the past; disparities in care should be eradicated). These six aims should be measured in order to assess whether the health care

This reflection will reflect on an incident that happened during my clinical placement. According to Gulland, A. (2013, Jul) the most frequent reported error in health care settings are medication errors.

Prior to the eleventh century, distribution of medicine was implemented by doctors. Since then, pharmacists have gained greater credibility and consequently established the responsibility of dispensing medication. This advancement proceeded in nations where doctors are paid consultation fees, yet in countries where a physician’s livelihood depends on selling medication, the original practice continued. This is an important issue to discuss as many lives are affected by preventable medical errors globally every year. A study showed that annually in the United States of America approximately 3.8 million inpatients and 3.3 million outpatients are affected by avoidable medication errors (Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and NEHI 2008). The purpose of this essay is to argue that only pharmacists, and not doctors, should be licensed to dispense and sell medicine.