Patient Safety Events In Hospitals

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.

Patient safety is of major concern in healthcare settings due to the preventable nature of events that sometimes lead to serious injury, and even death, for patients. This was catapulted to the forefront of healthcare delivery in 1999 when the Institute of Medicine wrote a scathing report; To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, that highlighted "the lack of safety for patients in healthcare organizations" (Ulrich and Kear 2014). The National Patient Safety

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).

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.

Patient safety should be the top priorty of every hospital and medical professional. Unfortunately it seems that priority gets lost sometimes in the business of health care. For example, the national death rate from a knee replacement surgery is about 1 in 1000. Patients that have that surgery done at a hospital that does not regularly perform it are 3 times more likely to die. However a recent story on National Public Radio highlighted some positive steps a few of the countries leading teaching hospitals are taking to prevent unnecessary risks to the safety of their patients.

I have chosen the Hospital National Patient Safety Goals. One goal is improve the accuracy of patient identification. The Joint Commission wants hospitals to use at least two patient identifiers when providing care, treatment, and services. I believe that the person, who is checking in the patient, needs to be made aware of the importance of this process. One way would be to request two pieces of personal identification. Fraud is happening everywhere and requesting two pieces of identification might make this less likely to happen. Every person that comes in contact with the patient needs to check their identification bracelet with the medical record, orders and prescriptions. The HIM professional manages the master patient index and must

There are 440,000 people a year that die from a preventable variety of mistakes that are made in hospitals, which comes out to a little over 1,000 deaths a day, and is the number three cause of death behind cancer, and heart disease (hospitalsafetyscore). According to a group that rates hospitals named The Leapfrog Group a nonprofit watchdog group that grades hospitals for safety, (leapfrog) a majority of these deaths are very avoidable and are most of the time simple mistakes. Errors in Hospitals are a broad issue that gets hundreds of thousands of people killed every year; for the most part, they are preventable and are caused by overtesting, overdiagnosis, overtreatment, non-reporting, and lack of oversight, though there are ways to prevent

In 2012 World Health Organization reported an estimate of one in ten people being subject to harm whilst hospitalized in developed countries. Patient safety is the epitome of healthcare as this is indicated by the ongoing systematic reviews by health organizations worldwide. Nurses duty of care to patients is ensuring and maintaining patient safety during their admission in hospital (Ammouri, et al 2012). Failure of effective handoff/handover communication between healthcare providers has been found to be the cause of approximately 80% of serious medical errors (Huang et al, 2010). This article will focus on communication between caregivers, lack of leadership and teamwork, lack of reporting systems, inadequate analysis of adverse events and inadequate staff knowledge about

One thing that this website really stresses is the value of teamwork and being transparent with patient care on different levels. The purpose of an incident reporting system is to not necessarily focus on errors that occurred by individuals, but rather look at systems and see if there was a breakdown that occurred and what can be changed or implemented differently from preventing future errors from happening and potentially reaching the patient. The website can also be used to look at an organization as a whole and get healthcare leaders and executives to see the important role of patient safety and the impact that breakdowns can have not only on patients, but also the financial impact, which ultimately will impact the bottom line of any healthcare organization. At the facility where this writer is employed, whenever a safety event is reported, a team sits down to look at what happened before the event, during the event, and after the event. This approach is effective because the team involves individuals from different departments to gather ideas and thoughts about the incident, which was also discussed in the website about having the proper stakeholders present and advocating for patient safety (National Patient Safety Foundation, 2017). Overall, there are many factors that can have an impact on patient safety, but the National Patient Safety Foundation is a great source to start with when discussing ways to improve patient safety and utilizing the proper resources to initiate new practices and promote safer healthcare in the United

With observation of past and current patient safety trends in the U.S. Health industry, it becomes apparent that there are a multitude of procedural errors which often lead to patient malpractice. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the various aspects into the causes of procedural errors and patient care malpractice. By analyzing this data, management may utilize the information in establishing patient safety initiatives for their respective establishment. In addition, by increasing public awareness of patient safety, it will prove to

Patient safety is described by the US Institute of Medicine as “the freedom from accidental injury due to medical care or from medical error” (Mansour, 2012). With that being said, patient safety has long been a major issue for hospitals. In the past many patients have been injured during hospital stays, some being injured severely with death being the result. With the growing trend of lawsuits, hospitals were becoming more and more vulnerable to financial liability when patients were injured on their grounds. No one wants to be responsible for the injury or death of another individual. This is why many hospitals have begun doing their own

According to the report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System (Institute of Medicine, 1999), 100,000 lives are lost annually as a result of medical errors (Classen, Lloyd, Provost, Griffin, & Resar, 2008). In the report, adverse events are defined as “an injury caused by medical management rather than by the underlying disease or condition of the patient” (Riga, Vozikis, Pollalis, & Souliotis, 2015, p. 539). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has therefore postulated that there is relevance in reporting medical errors. According to IOM, reporting medical errors is important for showing providers are accountable for patient safety and also for generating knowledge about patient safety. (Agrawal, 2015).

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

Currently, there is an incidence of patient safety events in hospitals, and sadly these events occur more often in the care for immigrant patients in comparison with patients born in the United States. Although this data proposes a drawback in the medical community, I believe the first step in reducing this disparity is elimination of cultural barriers in health care. Patients are not as homogenous as they used to be in the past, as the United States has incorporated diverse immigrant and cultural groups and continues to attract people from around the globe. Population experts predict the United States will become a majority “minority” nation by 2050 (Johnson, 2016), which is indicative of the nation’s altering demographics. These statistics

Safety is a major concern worldwide, especially in the healthcare facilities. Patient safety is the responsibility of all healthcare professionals (Vaismoradi, Jordan, & Kangasniemi, 2015). You see different safety implementations taken place in the different healthcare facilities, rather it involves medication administration, transferring a patient, preventing the spread of diseases, and or just correctly identifying the patient through patient participation and education. However, Studies have been done, that show safety outcomes are better met with the active participation of the patient (Vaismoradi et al., 2015). As a healthcare professional, you need to be aware of the different issues that might affect a patient safety and participation in safety measures, like their environment or mobility (Kenny, 2016). A majority of individuals, have had a family member or someone they know, that has been in a healthcare facility and witnessed a wide variety of safety implementations taken place or being neglected.