Medical Errors And The Medical Error

What is malpractice? The given definition is improper, illegal, or negligent professional activity or treatment, especially by a medical practitioner, lawyer, or public official. These cases are occurring more all over the state than they should be due to human era. The people at the hands of doctors are being let down as well as left with disfiguration or even death. These cases are leaving people to question their surgeons as well as the nurses attending with them.

Error in the healthcare environment are frequent and sometimes result in the death of a patient. Health care organization have learned that Errors in healthcare could result from humans negligence and/or system failures. IOM recognize that errors that result from system failures can be preventable. " in the Article Reducing the frequency of errors in medicine using information

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).

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

When assessing whether a no fault regime is better than a negligence rule in dealing with the causes and consequences of medical error, it would seem prudent to first understand the meaning of the term “medical error”. Liang defines medical error as ‘a mistake, inadvertent occurrence, or unintended event in health-care delivery which may, or may not, result in patient injury’ (2000, p.542). The consequence of these errors (or adverse events) that lead to patient injury, and the method by which we determine and administer compensation for such injuries, has been the source of heated debate amongst scholars in recent

Each year medical errors cause more than 400,000 American deaths and at least 10-20 times that number experience serious harm. Researchers say that is equivalent to “three 747 airplanes crashing each day.” Medical errors rank as the third-leading cause of death in America. Therefore, patient safety is a national concern.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released the first of a series of reports that would ignite a national focus on patient safety and quality of care. This first report, To Err is Human, addressed the fact that healthcare in the United States is not as safe as it should be.

The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) (1999) report To Err is Human revealed the United States healthcare system to be a rather unsafe environment for patients estimating that as many as 96,000 patients died or were seriously injured due to preventable medical errors. Incidentally, studies conducted as recently as 2011 have suggested that the actual rate of preventable medical error occurrence may be three times the IOM’s initial estimation (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012). Statistics this extreme cannot be attributed to the mistakes or substandard practices of individual healthcare providers alone and thus it is imperative that healthcare organizations begin to seek out solutions at the system’s level (Geary, 2014). Therefore, it

The Health Care Industry is complex and is responsible for the health of the country (The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania; Outcome Engineering, 2010), and ultimately of the world. Unfortunately, according to the Institute of Medicine's comprehensive report, "To Err Is Human," avoidable medical errors annually kill 44,000 - 98,000 hospital patients (Reiling, Knutzen, & Stoecklein, 2003). In addition, as of March 31, 2010, the ten most frequently reported sentinel events within U.S. healthcare organizations are: "wrong site surgery; suicide; operative/post-operative complication; delay in treatment; medical error; patient fall; unintended retention of a foreign body; assault, rape or homicide; perinatal death or loss of function; patient death or injury in restraints" (HealthLeaders Media, 2010). Clearly, many of these

Medical errors in the United States are part of a nationwide health crisis, with hospital death amounting to the third leading cause of mortality in the USA today. The Lewis Blackman case is a tragic example of medical error; particularly one relating to decision making. Group B identified several errors, near misses, adverse events, and harm taking place in this history. Medical errors, ranging from an unaddressed low urine output, to the doctor ordering an erroneous dose to the patient, to the blindness of clinicians in seeing the indicators of Lewis’ worsening condition, all resulting in the inability to save Lewis Blackman’s life.

The safety of the patient is a worldwide issue and is not a single hospitals problem as noted by Aiken et al. (2012). According to Van Den Bos et al. (2011) some of the ways that patients could be harmed includes poor application of technology that is meant to reduce errors in health care. According to Tzeng et al., 2013 patients die unnecessarily year after year due to medical harm that can be prevented. The 2011 report by the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) revealed that over 98,000 of medical harm resulted in death which is about 38% of the fatalities related to medication errors (Classen et al., 2011).This has prompted the organizations and government Agencies such as Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to continually

I agree with you, “Medical error prevention” is a priority for the future of the healthcare in the United States. “Preventable medical errors in hospitals are the third leading cause of death in the United States”. “Medical harm is a major cause of suffering, disability, and death – as well as a huge financial cost to our nation”. (Sanders, B., 2014).

Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, according to a study by Johns Hopkins. This information should cause concern for anyone who may need medical care in the future. The startling study sheds light on the mistakes made by healthcare professionals that result in the wrongful deaths of many patients each year.

Every day millions of people enter some type of health care facility seeking medical treatment. They go to these places because they trust the physicians, nurses, and all other medical personnel are there to provide them with adequate, quality care with hopes that they will be discharged in a healthier state. Inadvertently, each day millions of people entering these facilities and experiencing more complications than expected due to some type of medical error. Medical errors are becoming more and more frequent every day and its costing patients more than ever.

Even with this being the goal, medical errors occur and the number of adverse outcomes increase yearly. A significant amount of medical errors is the result of nursing errors, causing harm to patient and an increase in treatment expenses (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2012). It has been found that one in three patients that are admitted into the hospital will experience a medical error (Classen, et al, 2011). This alone proves the change needed to create a safer environment for patients, regardless of the medical error severity. To combat this issue, the types of medical errors must be identified. There are three categories of errors should be considered by healthcare facilities: errors that harm the patients, errors that do not result in harm of the patient and errors that may harm but are diminished before reaching the patient (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2012). An explanation must be made for these three categories in order to find a solution and stop them from occurring again. Another crucial factor in battling medical errors, is to determine whether or not they are being report and nurse’s definition of an