INTRODUCTION The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help to improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are unfortunately preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare thousands of deaths in the United States. In healthcare systems, there is a concept of fair and just culture. That concept is important to manage the risk. In any organization, errors can happen. But, the best first tool to understand the error is to report it when it happens. Reporting error …show more content…
People must be concerned about it more in developing countries. Since there are lacks of the medical errors evaluation structures in some countries, the outcome is always catastrophic. In Africa for example, many countries do not properly report the data. In Republic of Guinea, there are no official data concerning the medical errors. In those countries, there are no risk for the physicians to lose their licenses because there no structures to control their errors. In the United States, the medical errors are big concerns; the reporting systems of errors are developed. Errors in the United States can cause to the physicians the suspension of their licenses and/or their revocation. There are several types of medical errors. Those errors are including, but not limited to: Treating the wrong patient; administering the wrong medicine to the patient; doing surgery on the wrong part of the body; extraction of wrong tooth; forgotten a surgical object inside the body (gauge in abdomen for example); fake doctors in Africa. Many of those errors are
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).
I have been aware of medical errors for some time now. While in nursing school I have heard many stories from classmates and instructors of instances where people they knew, or loved ones had been either harmed or died because of a medical error. I have had experiences with medical errors. When I was in the hospital for the birth of my first child, the nurse that came to change out my IV bag did not check the
Milani, Oleck and Lavie reported that Medical errors are the eighth leading cause of death in the hospitals. About 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year from adverse effects from medication errors, 1 million annually die in
The purpose of this paper is to identify a quality safety issue. I will summarize the impact that this issue has on health care delivery. In addition, I will identify quality improvement strategies. Finally, I will share a plan to effectively implement this quality improvement strategy.
The Joint Commission was founded in 1951 with the goal to provided safer and better care to all. Since that day it has become acknowledged as the leader in developing the highest standards for quality and safety in the delivery of health care, and evaluating organization performance (The Joint Commission(a) [TJC], 2014). The Joint Commission continues to investigate ways to better patient care. In 2003 the first set of National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) went into effect. This list of goals was designed by a group of nurses, physicians, pharmacists, risk managers, clinical engineers, and other professionals with hands-on experience in addressing patient safety issues in a wide variety of healthcare settings (TJC(b), 2014). The NPSGs were created to address specific areas of concern in patient safety in all health care settings.
At the time, the IOM published the To Err is Human report stated that “lack of awareness of the extent to which errors occur daily in all health care settings and organizations” (Wakefield, 2008 Apr). This shows that the lack of attention and cause of medical errors in the daily healthcare setting can lead to accidental deaths and inadequate quality improvement
The patient safety program in hospital setting is intended to reduce medical errors and hazardous conditions by assuring an environment that inspires error identification, reporting and prevention through education, system enhancement for any adverse occasions such that information about sentinel events that frequently occurs in health care are built in the system progressively for risk reduction. Through education component, proper and effective orientation and training that emphasizes clinical and non-clinical aspects of patient safety, including an inte...
There are a large number of professional organizations specific to healthcare. One such organization The Joint Commission, is a non-profit independent organization that certifies and accredits over 19,000 healthcare organizations in the United States. [Their mission statement is] “to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value” (The Joint Commission, 2011). The National Patient Safety Goals were implemented 2002. The goals later became effective January 1, 2003 to address specific areas of concern in regards to patient safety. Upon implementation, these goals have been effective in reducing the number of medication errors, improving communication between healthcare providers, and reducing hospital-acquired infections in patients.
Medical errors can be life-changing for a patient and sometimes even fatal. Modifying software to help prevent errors is critical. Discussing changes that can be made to the system will improve patient care and prevent medical errors. Ensuring that staff has proper training of standards is important to prevent medical errors as well. Documenting the pertinent information in regards to patient history, medications, allergies and co-morbidities is important, especially if that patient requires emergency medical help while under your care.
In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)
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.
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).
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...
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).
Believing medical errors happen in everywhere in the world, but every mistakes has a reason behind. In Saudi Arabia, so many cases happened, but there are still not estimate exact number about medical error. There are so many medical errors are never reported in Saudi Arabia by healthcare professionals because of punishment. Some patient’s do not reporting their cases due to repotting do not give them most of their right to have.