Medical Errors

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

There are two common ways to handle a medical error. One is by blaming the individual or things when the error occurs, called it the “culture of blame”. The other one is by focusing on the safety goal using effective systems and teamwork, called “culture of safety". We may say that one is more applicable than the other, or maybe one is more beneficial than the other. In real life though, only one can be applied in a healthcare system, the one that is proven effective regardless its origin, pragmatic, or .

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).

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

Blendon, R. DesRoches, C. Brodie, M., Benson, J. Rosen, A., & Schneider, A. (2002). Views of practicing physicians and the public on medical errors. New England Journal of Medicine. 347, 1933-1940.

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.

Please write an Op-Ed to your newspaper of choice in which you argue for national attention to quality and patient safety improvement OR to expanding access and equity in the U.S. health care system.

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)

The higher incidence rate from the above suggested that the medication errors is an issue which is preventing the quality service. The puzzle often starts with whose problem is it. the medication error is the problem of all health care professionals and due to this errors the patients has to suffer. While discussing or thinking about an issue, possible solution is already on its way. But the

Wrong site, wrong procedure, and wrong patient errors are avoidable safety issues. Nearly 1.9 trillion dollars are spent on medical errors each year in the United States (Catalano & Fickenscher, 2008). Between 1995 and 2007, 691 wrong-site surgeries have been reported to The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event data repository (AHC Media LLC, 2008). In 2003 in response to the outcry for better patient safety The Joint Commission

Medication error is one of the biggest problems in the healthcare field. Patients are dying due to wrong drug or dosage. Medication error is any preventable incident that leads to inappropriate medication use or harms the patient while the medication is in the control of the health care professional,or patient (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2015). It is estimated about 44,000 inpatients die each year in the United States due to medication errors which were indeed preventable (Mahmood, Chaudhury, Gaumont & Rust, 2012). There are many factors that contribute to medication error. However, the most common that factors are human factors, right patient information, miscommunication of abbreviations, wrong dosage. Healthcare providers do not intend to make medication errors, but they happen anyways. Therefore, nursing should play a tremendous role to reduce medication error

a. Identify the ethical dilemma faced by the CIO in this situation using the three normative theories of business ethics. Identify all stakeholders involved. How will each stakeholder group be affected by the decision taken by the management?

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