Reducing Medical Mistakes Essay

520 Words2 Pages

According to a study by the journal of patient safety; between, 210,000 and 440,000 people each year who goes to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm. Too many medical mistakes are being made by doctors and other health care professionals. There are changes that need to be made to lessen the number of preventable medical mistakes examples of such would be, making a checklist, double checking treatments and making a more effective system of patient charts and records. Making a checklist of things to do in the medical field can reduce the adverse side effects and outcomes. When they did a study the BJA or British Journal of Anesthesia they found that when a hospital made a checklist the infection rate dropped 11.3%. In another study by the BJA it found that surgery departments using the WHO surgery checklist it found that mortality rates fell .7%. Checklists can be used in any stretch of life from when it comes to school to everyday tasks. I personally use a checklist when studying for an exam to make sure that I covered everything. Although some parts of the system function well, it can be improved with checklists. When used surgical and …show more content…

While comparing diagnosis with others healthcare professionals should have increasing contact with each other and the patient to ensure good results. Another reason that comparing diagnosis with each other would be a good idea is that when making a diagnosis you can be incorrect when diagnosing a patient so a second opinion could be a good idea. Some specialties are more high risk than others, for example, optometry and cardiac surgery one of them you cut into the heart to heal it and the other is checking a patient’s vision and eyesight. Although there are mistakes made in diagnosing patients that could lead to further damages, but comparing diagnosis between professionals could reduce that

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