Medical Errors

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).

November, 1999 brought about a release of a report prepared by the prestigious National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) making medical mistakes and their magnitude of the risks to patients receiving hospital care to common public knowledge. The IOM concluded that between 44,000-98,000 deaths occur annually because of medical errors. Among a general agreement was that system deficiencies were the most important factor in the problem and not incompetent or negligent physicians and other caregivers (Sultz & Young, 2010). An excellent example of a system deficiency that leads to a crisis and sentinel event was the highly publicized overdose of Heparin to Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins in 2007.

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

However even though there are many problem with the Pap smear, the most important error is failure of women to get a Pap smear (Dziura, 2009). As it is harder to monitor any changes in the cervical cancer if you don’t turn up for regular

When it comes to health care in the United States, the initial thought many people have are the many growing controversies concerning Obamacare, vaccinations, and making sure all Americans have access to affordable and quality health care. However, what many people fail to realize is a certain aspect in the medical community that, since the early 80’s with the infamous study by Berkman and Frankel, is increasing at such a tremendous rate that the Columbia Medical Review has referred to it as an “epidemic in the medical community.” The statistics regarding the number of individuals who die each year due to medical errors is rising; slowly becoming a major concern in the field. Doctors are busy individuals and at the end of the day still

At this level, medical errors are responsible for claiming 44,000 to 96,000 lives a year. The list is there to prevent and protect patient safety. Common medical errors can be failure to understand how much of a medicine should be taken and

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.

Medical errors are avoidable mistakes in the health care. These errors can take place in any type of health care institution. Medical errors can happen during medical tests and diagnosis, administration of medications, during surgery, and even lab reports, such as the mixing of two patients’ blood samples. These errors are usually caused by the lack of communication between doctors, nurses and other staff. A medical error could cause a severe consequence to the patient in cases consisting of severe injuries or cause/effect any health conditions, and even death. According to recent studies medical errors are not the third leading cause of death in the United States. (Walerius. 2016)

In the article “Why the American Medical Establishment Cannot Reduce Medical Errors” by Philips Levitt, the main points are the “incompetent” physician are the reasons behind hundreds of thousands of deaths in America and what the hospital can do to prevent the deaths. After I read the article, I was surprised that “…a small number of doctors—about two percent—are responsible for half the cases in which a patient is seriously and unnecessarily harmed in the process of being treated” (Levitt) because I was shocked that about two percent of doctors are liable for half of the case of the harm or deaths of the patient and this is the reason why it cost the people so much for health care. For example, “…$300 billion a year are spent on the waste

In nutshell, unrecording of medical errors leads to various problems not only for the patient and family but also for the organization. Because revealing of errors helps the higher authority to eliminate errors in future and improve patient safety within the organization. At the end, there should be a good policies and guidelines for the health personnel that is important to maximize reporting of errors and near-misses and ensure quality of care (Institute for Healthcare Improvement,

Medical error reports can vary by type of error, for example, rule violations, non-standardized medical practices, medication and diagnostic testing errors, management practices, patient misconduct, and insurance fraud. Research suggests that many medical errors go unreported and that nurses are pivotal in understanding barriers to reporting and ways to improve the reporting process. Nurses are believed to a critical part of the medical error reporting issue because they are the individuals that work hands on with patients (the most), have a duty and responsibility for patient advocacy, and changes, resulting from error reporting, that improve direct patient care practices impact nurse’s day to day actives (Wolf & Hughes, 2008). Evidence suggests

Mistakes happen everyday. The good thing about mistakes is you can usually fix them with a few simple steps. When making an error in a patients chart it needs to be corrected as soon as it is noticed.The right way to correct a mistake is to cross it out with a single line, in black pen, and write your initials next to it. A good thing to get in the routine of is double checking your work while your still in the room with the patient. You shouldn't use white out on a medical document. If an error is noticed late I think you should inform the doctor before they enter the patients room.

Drug errors or drug-related injuries are one of the most serious medical mistakes that can happen in hospitals, occurring in about half of surgeries. Examples of treatment medical errors are errors in issuing the treatment, dose or method of using a drug, error in the performance of an operation, a test, or procedure. Avoidable delays in treatment, responding to a test, and giving inappropriate care also examples of treatment medical errors. Medical error is defined as a preventable adverse effect of medical care whether or not evident or harmful to the patient. Often viewed as the human error factor in healthcare, this is a highly complex subject related to many factors such as incompetency, lack of education or

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