Medical Mistakes In Health Care

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.

IOM (The Institute of Medicine) which is a nonprofit organization that provides health evidence to public and private sector to help them to make right health decision (IOM, 2014). IOM released the report called “To Err is Human” in 1999 which stated that patient safety and reducing medical errors is a first step toward in improving quality of care. In addition, this report shows every year 98,000 people die from medical errors.

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.

Medical errors can be defined as errors, adverse events and preventable adverse events. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) defined all three components of medical errors and they are as follows: errors occur when the intended plan of action fails and

The third leading cause of death in America may surprise you. Hospitals and healthcare organizations dedicate their branding to reflect a place of hope, comfort, and healing when ones health is compromised. Sadly, medical errors do exists in the realm of healthcare. The National Center for Biotechnology Information defines medical error as “an act of omission or commission in planning or execution that contributes to or could contribute to an unintended result.” Medical errors may include incorrect record keeping, administering incorrect medication to a patient, misdiagnosis, failing to remove all surgical instruments and performing surgery on the incorrect site. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality identified eight factors that contribute to the cause of medical errors. These factors include “communication problems, inadequate information flow, human problems, patient-related issues, organizational transfer of knowledge, staffing patterns, technical failures and inadequate policies and procedures.”

The book explains that vast majority of errors occur due to good doctors trying to do the right thing but being unable to reach the goal since the system is fragmented. The authors include many instances of medical error, responses from patients, families, and healthcare professional, and the steps taken to improve the performance and reinvent the health care system. Throughout the book, heroic role of many leaders of healthcare professionals, scientists, and academic professionals are presented.

Section 2 of this report, Errors in Health Care: A Leading Cause of Death and Injury, surveys the writing on mistakes to evaluate current comprehension of the greatness of the issue and distinguishes various issues that hinder consideration regarding persistent security. A general absence of data on and attention to mistakes in human services by buyers and shoppers makes it unthinkable for them to request better care. The way of life of pharmaceutical make a desire of flawlessness and ascribes mistakes to lack of regard or inadequacy. Obligation concerns demoralize the surfacing of mistakes and correspondence about how to amend them. The absence of unequivocal and reliable models for understanding wellbeing makes holes in authorizing and accreditation

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

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

Students go through four years of medical schools and countless years of residency just to learn and practice medicine and its connection with humanities. Once they are done with rigorous training, they believe that they, themselves, know everything and that every patient will leave the hospital or clinic cured, treated, and happy. However, that is not the case. No matter how one does on their med school boards, physicians are prone to mistakes. Physicians have encountered at least one mistake during their career. Different people have different perspectives concerning errors in the medicine field. Atul Gawande’s “Complications: A Surgeon’s Note on an Imperfect Science” and Dr. Goldman’s TED Talk emphasize errors in a hospital or clinical setting.

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.

The United States Health Care System currently has a unique quantity of the different types of medical care that the system offers. Regardless of this fact, many issues arise when it comes to assuring high quality care for everyone. Not all is well since the current health care system is a top economic and social problem for Americans (Health Care Problems, 2015). Many issues such as medical errors, quality of care, and other issues can impact the health care organization such as hospitals, clinics, and physicians. One of the issues is medical errors. They occur when a hospital or doctor provide an inappropriate service of care. Medical errors are defined as human errors in health care and reflects the deterioration of the relationship between patients and the health care system. This paper attempts to examine the medical errors and its impact on health care, while recommending changes to company corporate structure, governance, culture, focus, and social responsibility, and recommend reallocation of resources to prevent the issue from repeating in the future (Health Care Problems, 2015).

Hi Stacy, That is true that we learn by mistakes. I like to bring the topic on just culture which we should remember to be aware of as professional. Thereby, we encourage the students to reporting the errors instead of concealing to reach harm to the patients safety and themselves. In healthcare environment there are three types of errors can happen. Such as Human error, at-risk behavior, and reckless behavior. Human error, described by Marx, 2008 that when an individual's do something “other than what they should have been doing” (p.7). He stated on at-risk behavior as, when individuals choose actions that increase the risk of a mistake and the risk is not recognized or it is mistakenly believed to be justified. Finally the reckless behavior

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

Inexperience and ignorance are two factors that can result in unintentional harm to a patient. For instance, foolish mistakes made out of