Medical Errors in USA

1053 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Medical error affects practice

Medical Errors in US There is nothing traumatizing in the world has adding pain to where it already exists. This is the hell situation which every medical error victim is exposed. As the statistics are currently showing, the fatalities are increasing day by day. The trend seems to be hiding on the old ideology of “man is to error”. However this is not being tolerated any more and the American medical facilities are being held 100% accountable for the mistakes they make in their service delivery. Professional diligence is not a matter of negotiation in this generation and probably future generations. If a medical facility cannot treat people diligently, then the only better option remaining for that facility is to be made to account for the losses they have caused on affected patients and be closed down immediately. Paul Mountjoy, a reporter of the Washington Times, asks whether medical errors are ranking third in causing deaths in US. In the article, he notes that medical error complications are an emerging major public health issue as he reports that nearly 400,000 American patients die annually due to complications resulting from medical errors. The trend seems to be growing because nearly 10 years ago the figure was nearly 250,000 cases. This is according to a report by Dr. Starfield. Without much guess, this confirms that actually medical errors rank third in killing American citizens. Cancer and heart complications of course take the lead. Among the 13 nations that have advanced modern medical facilities, USA is ranked 12th and this is primarily because the service brought on board overly by the entire medical industry is poor. World Health Organization equates medical service in US to that offered in less technologically ... ... middle of paper ... ... simulations, which range from computer run screen simulations to physical simulations, are helping the medical trainees acquire high edge experiences from repetitive exercises of complex medical procedures. The skills and understanding derived from this kind of training is hopefully expected to improve the actual medical service delivery once the students graduate. Conclusion Medical error plague in USA today is solvable. This is because US has the medical technology and other valuable resources that have a potential of safeguarding the lives of many from this manmade pandemic. All what is needed a little bit of some organization within the industry and institution of regulations that give a clear guideline on how communication should be done across all the stakeholders involved in this industry. Americans need not to die on this scale when it can be avoided.

Show More
Related

  • Essay On Is Healthcare A Right Or A Privilege

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Harry A. Sultz and Kristina M. Young, the authors of our textbook Health Care USA, medical care in the United States is a $2.5 Trillion industry (xvii). This industry is so large that “the U.S. health care system is the world’s eighth

    Read More

  • Chasing Zero

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to a preventable medical error. A report written by the National Quality Forum (NQF) found that over a decade after the IOM report the prevalence of medical errors remains very high (2010). In fact a study done by the Hearst Corporation found that the number of deaths due to medical error and post surgical infections has increased since the IOM first highlighted the problem and recommended actions to reduce the number of events (Dyess, 2009).

    Read More

  • Frontline Sick Around The World Summary

    464 Words  | 1 Pages

    Exploring the documentary on frontline Sick Around the World, I was shocked to hear where the United State’s healthcare system stood in comparison to other nations’. I felt highly astonished when finding out that our country shamefully holds thirty seventh place when being categorized for our National healthcare. Our healthcare system has grown a reputation for being highly unjust and corrupt when providing utilities and services for citizens. This upsets me because reflecting over the statistics presented in the documentary, our country should have a remarkably better healthcare system considering how much more money we spend. By comparing our financial investments and structure to other countries, one would think our nation would finally find a solution to

    Read More

  • It's Time to Reform American Health Care

    2249 Words  | 5 Pages

    Health care advancements in America are notably the best in the world. We continually strive for preventions and cures of diseases. America has the best medical scientists and physicians that specialize in their medical fields. According to Joseph A. Califano Jr. (2003), "what makes America health care system great is its ability to attract the finest minds in our society," that can help the sick by preventing and curing medical complications. (p. 18). We are noted worldwide for our medical care and physicians from other countries jump at the opportunity to join the American medical system.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay: The United States is not The Greatest Country in The World

    1772 Words  | 4 Pages

    Despite the established health care facilities in the United States, most citizens do not have access to proper medical care. We must appreciate from the very onset that a healthy and strong nation must have a proper health care system. Such a health system should be available and affordable to all. The cost of health services is high. In fact, the ...

    Read More

  • Wrong Site, Wrong Procedure, and Wrong Patient Errors

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    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 published their National Patient Safety Goals. Among the goals was the Universal Protocol. The Universal Protocol is actually drawn from several of the National Patient Safety Goals. It relies on multiple check points and the involvement of the entire surgical team to avoid such errors. Wrong site, wrong procedure, and wrong patient surgeries should never happen. The Universal Protocol is an evolving process which reflects the success and failures of healthcare practice, thus it requires periodic updates and policy revisions.

    Read More

  • The Rising Cost of Health Care

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.

    Read More

  • Problems With the U.S. Healthcare System

    1646 Words  | 4 Pages

    The U.S. healthcare system is very complex in structure hence it can be appraised with diverse perspectives. From one viewpoint it is described as the most unparalleled health care system in the world, what with the cutting-edge medical technology, the high quality human resources, and the constantly-modernized facilities that are symbolic of the system. This is in addition to the proliferation of innovations aimed at increasing life expectancy and enhancing the quality of life as well as diagnostic and treatment options. At the other extreme are the fair criticisms of the system as being fragmented, inefficient and costly. What are the problems with the U.S. healthcare system? These are the questions this opinion paper tries to propound.

    Read More

  • ICD Codes

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to a recent study in the The British Medical Journal, medical mistakes are the third leading cause of deaths in the United States, but that it is not listed as such because of the way cause of death is coded and reported (Makary, et. al, 2016). A classification of codes called the International Classification of Disease (ICD) is used to identify known diagnosis, diseases, disorders, injuries and cause of death attributed to human beings. Due to the limitation of ICD codes, many deaths due to medical errors are not listed. In this paper, we will look into the importance of these codes, the problems associated with them, as well as how to solve them, before finally moving onto what improvements can be done in the future for this medical

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Bedside Reporting In Nursing

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    Improving quality of care in the healthcare system begins with the patients. According to the Institute of medicine, (IOM), the deaths per year that were caused by medical errors were estimated between 44,000 to 98,000. Medical errors are common to occur in today’s complex healthcare system, even though, hospitals and all other healthcare organizations regularly provide in-services to their staff and train them in regards to new changes in the healthcare. In addition, the health care system also provides counseling to patients who are affected by the errors and to their families afterwards. Still, medical errors still continue to occur. Hence, the healthcare profession continues to implement new methods that can help in improving

    Read More

  • Case Based Reasoning

    1427 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kohn, L., Corrigan, J., & Donaldson, M. (1999). To err is human: building a safer health system. Committee on Quality of Health Care in America Institute of Medicine National Academy Press Washington, D.C.

    Read More

  • Characteristics of the U.S. Health Care Delivery System

    613 Words  | 2 Pages

    The United States health care system is one of the most expensive systems in the world yet it is known as being unorganized and chaotic in comparison to other countries (Barton, 2010). This factor is attributed to numerous characteristics that define what the U.S. system is comprised of. Two of the major indications are imperfect market conditions and the demand for new technology (Barton, 2010). The health care system has been described as a free market in

    Read More

  • Patient Safety

    1173 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 coordination task force with the help of government agencies. These government agencies are responsible for making health pol-icies regarding patient safety to which every HCO must follow (Schulman & Kim, 2000).

    Read More

  • Essay On Health Care Issues

    1233 Words  | 3 Pages

    The health care is extremely important to society because without health care it would not be possible for individuals to remain healthy. The health care administers care, treats, and diagnoses millions of individual’s everyday from newborn to fatal illness patients. The health care consists of hospitals, outpatient care, doctors, employees, and nurses. Within the health care there are always changes occurring because of advance technology and without advance technology the health care would not be as successful as it is today. Technology has played a big role in the health care and will continue in the coming years with new methods and procedures of diagnosis and treatment to help safe lives of the American people. However, with plenty of advance technology the health care still manages to make an excessive amount of medical errors. Health care organizations face many issues and these issues have a negative impact on the health care system. There are different ways medical errors can occur within the health care. Medical errors are mistakes that are made by health care providers with no intention of harming patients. These errors rang from communication error, surgical error, manufacture error, diagnostic error, and wrong medication error. There are hundreds of thousands of patients that die every year due to medical error. With medical errors on the rise it has caused the United States to be the third leading cause of death. (Allen.M, 2013) Throughout the United States there are many issues the he...

    Read More

  • Medical Errors in Healthcare System

    2430 Words  | 5 Pages

    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).

    Read More

More about Medical Errors in USA

Open Document