Preventing Mistakes In Health Care

2252 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Patient safety in the hospital setting

Health Care is growing increasingly more intricate as new technologies generate that enable health professionals to identify and treat more medical conditions, making a breeding ground where medical mistakes are bound to occur. Yet, it's crucial these mistakes are reduced as much as possible. Hospitals are places where sensitive and sophisticated care is supplied, but preventing patients from being injured in the course of seeking aid in our health care system, continue to be a challenge.

Due to the numerous advances happening in a hospital, no one is immune from making an error that could be catastrophic to your health, new research estimates up to 440,000 Americans are dying annually from preventable hospital errors. (Hospital Errors 2013) In a a written …show more content…

That indicates engaging in every decision about your healthcare. Research implies that patients who tend to be much more involved with their care have a tendency to get better outcomes Most errors result from complications created by today's complex health care system. However numerous errors tend to happen when doctors and patients have difficulties communicating. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality provided guidelines for patients to follow in order to be provided with safer medical care. (AHRQ 2015)
• Be certain that all your physicians understand about each and every medication you're taking. This consists of prescription and over-the-counter medications and food supplements, like vitamins and herbs.
• Bring all your medications and nutritional supplements to your own physician visits. "Brown-bagging" your medicines can assist you along with your doctor talk about them-and discover whether there are any difficulties. It may also help your doctor keep your records current and assist you to get better-quality treatment. This may enable you to prevent obtaining a medicine that could damage

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • Never Events: Doctor and Hospital's Misktakes

    1451 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hospitals are busy places, and with so much going on it is hard to believe that mistakes are not made. However, there are some accidents that should never happen. Such events have been termed ‘never events’ because they are never supposed to happen. This term was first introduced by Ken Kizer, MD, in 2001 (US, 2012). The Joint Commission has classified never events as sentinel events and asks that hospitals report them. A sentinel event is defined as, “an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physiological or psychological injury, or the risk thereof” (US, 2012). Never events are termed sentinel events because in the past 12 years 71% of the events reported were fatal (US, 2012). Because these events are never supposed to happen, many insurance companies will not reimburse the hospitals when they occur. A study in 2006, showed that the average hospital could experience a case of wrong-site surgery, one example of a never event, only once every 5 to 10 years (US, 2012). This study illustrates how rare a never event is. Hospitals do not want these never events to happen any more than a patient does. To help prevent these errors, hospitals have created policies that, if followed, will minimize the possibility of a mistake. The consequences of never events are devastating and because of this the goal is to make sure that they are eradicated from hospitals and medical facilities.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of When Doctors Make Mistakes By Atul Gawande

    356 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the essay “When Doctors Make Mistakes” written by Atul Gawande, he writes a first-hand account of mistakes made by himself and his colleagues. The essay is divided into five parts, each named to the narrative and emotions of the story he would tell. In each story he tells, he uses such vivid language that we as readers feel as if we are one of his colleagues. Each section has its own importance to the whole point he was trying to get across, ““All doctors make terrible mistakes” (657).

    Read More

  • Medical Errors In Patient Safety Principles And Practice

    238 Words  | 1 Pages

    There are a few types of medical errors discussed in Patient Safety Principles & Practice. One of them is an error of execution. An error of execution is when a correct action does not proceed as intended. It is a failure of a planned action to be completed as first intended. It occurs unintentionally during an automatic performance of patient care. This error is almost always observable at the patient and caregiver interface.

    Read More

  • Medication Errors Research Paper

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    Medication Errors one of the biggest issues happening in an acute care setting today . Although, Medications are given based on the five rights principles: the right patient, right medication, right route, right dose, and right time. Even with the five rights principles medication errors are still happening. However, some of the errors that are occurring are due to poor order transcriptions and documentation, drug interactions, proper drug name and not paying enough attention and environment factors.

    Read More

  • Transactional Leadership Theory Of Medical Error

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hospital medical errors can involve medicines (e.g., wrong drug, wrong dose, bad combination), an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis, equipment malfunction, surgical mistakes, or laboratory errors. High medical error rates with serious consequences occurs in intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency departments; but, serious errors that harmed patients may have prevented or minimized. Understand the nature of the error

    Read More

  • How To Prevent Hospital Errors Essay

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    In saying 1.5 million Americans have witnessed hospital errors in the care of the medical center or even 40,000-100,000 deaths is a ridiculous amount of faults. Errors should be minimized, especially when dealing with people’s lives. The number of deaths is so high hospitals should take notice and really pinpoint where their facility is miscalculating and create in-service training to all employees and not just the ones that are making the errors but all employees. This will decrease the chances of errors made in the hospital. With continuous training every month there can be a huge change in the number of mistakes. The fact that these inaccuracies are even causing deaths really highlight the importance of the need for a change. Families

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Safety In The Health Care Environment

    1774 Words  | 4 Pages

    Safety is a primary concern in the health care environment, but there are still many preventable errors that occur. In fact, a study from ProPublica in 2013 found that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year suffer preventable harm in the hospital (Allen, 2013). Safety in the healthcare environment is not only keeping the patient safe, but also the employee. If a nurse does not follow procedure, they could bring harm to themselves, the patient, or both. Although it seems like such a simple topic with a simple solution, there are several components to what safety really entails. Health care professionals must always be cautious to prevent any mishaps to their patients, especially when using machines or lifting objects, as it has a higher

    Read More

  • Patient Confidentiality with Electronic Health Records

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wen, L. (2013, 04 26). 10 medical errors that can kill you in the hospital.

    Read More

  • Medication Errors

    533 Words  | 2 Pages

    Medication errors made by medical staff bring about consequences of epidemic proportions. Medical staff includes everyone from providers (medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants) to pharmacists to nurses (registered and practical). Medication errors account for almost 98,000 deaths in the United States yearly (Tzeng, Yin, & Schneider, 2013). This number only reflects the United States, a small percentage in actuality when looking at the whole world. Medical personnel must take responsibility for their actions and with this responsibility comes accountability in their duties of medication administration. Nurses play a major role in medication error prevention and education and this role distinguishes them as reporters of errors.

    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

    Medical errors can happen in the healthcare system such as hospitals, outpatient clinics, operating rooms, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, patients’ homes and anywhere in the healthcare system where patients are being treated. These errors consist of diagnostic, treatment, medicine, surgical, equipment calibration, and lab report error. Furthermore, communication problems between doctors and patients, miscommunication among healthcare staff and complex health care systems are playing important role in medical errors. We need to look for a solution which starts changes from physicians, nurses, pharmacists, patients, hospitals, and government agencies. In this paper I will discuss how does the problem of medical errors affect our healthcare delivery system? Also how can these medical errors be prevented and reduced?

    Read More

  • Patient Safety Essay

    491 Words  | 1 Pages

    Over several decades, studies have shown a considerable number of patients who suffer medical error related injuries while in the hospital. This indicates that medical error is a serious problem. A report issued in 1999 by the US Institute of Medicine, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, revealed that at least 44,000 people die in US hospitals each year as a result of medical errors (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). In 2012, it is estimated that there are almost 43 million patient safety incidences in the world annually (Jha et al., 2013).

    Read More

  • Career Essay For Pharmacy

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    I was also responsible for monitoring medication orders and reviewing patient profiles to ensure that the proper drugs and dosages were prescribed and that the pharmacy technician had prepared them properly. In many instances there were mistakes made in the preparation phase and sometimes even before, with incorrect dosages or drugs being prescribed and prepared, which could result in serious adverse effects for the patient. A clinical pharmacist’s role, however, is to make sure that these mistakes never reach the

    Read More

More about Preventing Mistakes In Health Care

Open Document