Root Cause Analysis In Healthcare Organization

When it comes to medication errors several things may occur such as adverse drug event, unexpected deterioration, and even death in severe cases. AHRQ (2015) states, “an adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as harm experienced by a patient as a result of exposure to a medication, and ADEs account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits 100,000 hospitalizations each year.” There are many ways that errors may occur such as dispensary errors, prescription errors

Medication errors are the leading cause of morbidity and preventable death in hospitals (Adams). In fact, approximately 1.5 million Americans are injured each year as a result of medication errors in hospitals (Foote). Not only are medication errors harmful to patients but medication errors are very expensive for hospitals. Medication errors cost America’s health care system 3.5 billion dollars per year (Foote).Errors in medication administration occurs when one of the five rights of medication administration is omitted. The five rights are: a) the right dose, b) the right medication, c) the right patient, d) the right route of administration, and e) the right time of delivery (Adams). Medication administration is an essential part of

Root cause analysis process will utilize a systematic step-by-step approach to help identify all causative factors leading to this sentinel event. The main purpose of the Root Cause Analysis is to understand how the event happened, why did it happen, and what can be done to prevent an event from happening again. The first step, collect all necessary data associated with this event such as: current policy and procedures, incident report, Mr. B’s health history, environmental flowcharts, dispensed medications, equipment and staffing factors relevant to the event. The process of identifying causative factors can begin once all the data is collected. The goal, of a Root Cause Analysis, is to identify interventions to prevent an event from reoccurring.

A. A complete root cause analysis (RCA) that incorporates the causative factors, errors, and hazards that led to the patient’s outcome or sentinel event.

A root cause analysis (RCA) looks at an event and considers what happened, why it happened what will be done to prevent it from happening again and how will we know that the changes made will improve the safety of the system. It takes into consideration causative factors, errors and hazards that led to a sentinel event. In this case it was a patient’s death. RCA should not look to place blame on people, but rather processes that need to be improved.

The provided scenario gives an account of a busy emergency department with competent staff, and the multiple errors that led up to the most severe error possible in healthcare, unnecessary death of a patient. A root cause analysis (RCA) can be utilized to help understand the systems at fault within the facility so that improvements can be determined and implemented to prevent any future occurrences (Cherry, 456). RCAs focus on systems rather than blaming individuals involved, therefore they are only appropriate in cases where there has been no willful negligence or criminal acts (Huber & Ogrinc, 2014). The overall purpose of RCAs is to find out the causes of the adverse event and determine how to keep similar errors from

Medication errors are focused on: terms and definitions; incidence of and harm; risk factors; avoidance; disclosure, legalities & consequences (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Medication errors categories have been developed by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Examples of these categories are based on prescribing, omitting drugs not administered, timing, unauthorized drug, wrong dosage, wrong preparation, expired drug, not using laboratory data to monitor toxicity (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Additionally, this article examines in depth common causes leading to medication errors, drug nomenclature, similar sounding drugs, unapproved abbreviations and handwriting, medical staff shortages and manufacturer medication shortages. Even though this article provides an informative overview for physicians, other allied health personnel may benefit too. This is valuable knowledge for the health care professional not just physicians in order to provide safe care for their

A root cause analysis (RCA) is a method by which we can examine a serious adverse event and identify the cause, or causes, that led up to the event. Although personnel are involved in these events, the primary purpose of the RCA is to identify the cause, not to assign blame (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2014). It is through identifying a cause, or causes, of an adverse event that we can improve on patient care processes and thereby patient safety. The RCA is designed as a specific protocol that starts with data collection looking at the sequence of events that led to the

Medication errors are a major issue affecting patient safety in hospitals, which can create deadly consequences for patients. It is crucial to identify and analyzed medication errors so healthcare professionals can pinpoint why medication errors occur and provide insight into how to prevent or reduce them.

After careful analysis of what had happened and what should have happened takes place, the RCA team should ideally focus on why the adverse events happened. In this step, the goal is pinpoint the direct causes and contributory factors (Ogrinc & Huber, 2013). By doing this, the root cause of an event can be identified. One suggestion made by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement in the root cause analysis process is to ask “Why?” five times (Ogrinc & Huber, 2013).

Medication errors analysis offers opportunities to implement more reliable and more cost-effective policies and improve patient safety standards that help in managing adverse events and near misses ₍₂₎. Root Cause Analysis is an analytical approach that has long been used by reliable organizations and institutions. RCA is a systematic investigation and thorough evaluation of the reported event to discover the

In today’s current fast-paced and demanding field of heath care, medication administration has become complex and time-consuming task. Approximately one-third of the nurses’ time is used in medication administration. There is much potential for error because of the complexity of the medication administration process. Since nurses are the last ones to actually administer the medication to the patient therefore they become responsible for medication administration errors (MAE). Reasons for MAE may include individual factors, organizational factors or system factors. This paper will discuss the root causes analysis of MAE and strategies to prevent them.

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

The article’s topic discusses root cause analysis in regards to the evaluation of medication errors at a university hospital. According to the article, medication errors is one of the top five medical errors in the healthcare setting, which requires a root cause analysis. The focus of the article is for the healthcare agency to identify the root problem, complete a root cause analysis, and implement policy and procedures that will help to minimize or eliminate the problem. The article states that the blame for the medication error should not be placed on the individual that it happened to but on the actual process that was faulty. By doing this, it will it significantly reduce the occurrence of medication errors and promote patient safety.

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