Medication Errors

(Author’s name)

(Institutional Affiliation)

Abstract

This paper will look at one of the many issues in medicine that has affected the effectiveness of medical care for a long time. The issue under scrutiny in this case is Medical errors, something that has been found to be extremely common in medicine. For the purposes of an understanding that is comprehensive, three articles are going to be reviewed on the issues and some of the possible lessons for medical practitioners learned in the articles will be used to come up with a recommendation on how these errors can be checked.

Introduction

A medical error is a term commonly used to describe mistakes or errors that occur during medical care of a patient. These errors are usually committed by medical practitioners and they can be as a result of numerous things such as negligence, inexperience, incompetency, using wrong equipments, among others. However, it is not always that these errors are as a result of negligence or inexperience, sometimes other factors affecting the doctor such as stress can cause errors. Errors can be dangerous to the lives of patients. As it follows, they must be checked and programs must be put in place to ensure that mistakes do not occur unnecessarily (The Leap Frog Group, 2008).

Eurobarometer. (2005). Medical Errors

This article argues that health interventions, even those meant to benefit the patient can sometimes result to harmful outcomes. Mistakes, when it comes to medical care, can result and occur anywhere in the health care system. This can be at the doctor’s office, the hospital, pharmacies, nursing homes, and even patient’s homes, and in any part or section of the process of treatment involving improper treatment, wrong medication and delayed or incorrect test results. The article perceives medical errors as an essential challenge in numerous countries. The article goes on and argues that about 78 percent of EU citizens cite medical errors as a persistent issue in their country. The study also indicates that women, more than men, in these counties perceive the problem as significant. However, no straight tendencies can be deducted when it comes to the variable related to socio- demographics of individuals who have been affected by the problem. However, the younger population seems to be in the dark about medical errors (Eurobarometer, 2005).

I have learned from this article that the level of concern and personal experiences and the perceived significance of the problem are essential in determining the individuals who have more knowledge of medical errors. The article indicates that knowledge of medical errors is essential in avoiding and preventing them in the future. This knowledge can be extremely essential in my practice. This is because I can further on knowledge about the existence and the possibility of patients suffering from or encountering medical errors. With this knowledge, patients can be in a better position to determine when they are in danger of experiencing medical errors and when they are not (Eurobarometer, 2005).

Halbach, J. L. & Sullivan, L. (2002). Medical errors and patient safety: a curriculum guide for teaching medical students and family practice residents.

The article gives examples of medical errors as missed diagnosis, incorrect dosage, premature or inappropriate discharge, waiting even when treatment has been indicated, faulty techniques, failure to review plan of treatment, and failure to convey information to the patient during sign- out. The article also provides the reader with several possible reasons why medical mistakes occur. Some of these reasons include hesitation, faulty judgment, ignorance, fatigue, system flaws, failure to carry out close monitoring, job overload, and inexperience. There are four main reasons given by doctors as to why these mistakes are common. These include physician stressors, factors in the process of care, factors related to patients, and characteristics of physicians. From this article, a number of lessons can be learned. For example I have learned that errors will always happen, systems should be created to help avoid and absorb errors, errors are not necessarily caused by negligence, and that institutions should start a supportive culture of reporting errors for the purposes of future avoidance (Halbach & Sullivan, 2002).

These lessons can be assimilated in my practice by accepting the fact that errors are common so as to design methods and systems for checking errors in advance, and for preventing and averting them. This knowledge can also be used to check for root causes of problems and errors instead of blaming or punishing the physician because some errors are not as a result of negligence. Also, this knowledge can be used to inform the concerned parties the essentiality of reporting errors as soon as they happen. This is because this can help immensely in reducing future errors (Halbach & Sullivan, 2002).

The Leap Frog Group. (2008). Computerized physician order entry.

This article argues that in US hospitals more than one million cases of medical errors occur each year. The article indicates that these errors include such things as wrong administration of drugs, overlooked interactions and allergies of drugs, wrong drugs and drug overdoses. They authors argue that these errors occur for numerous reasons such as decimal point errors, and illegible prescriptions that are handwritten. The article argues that these errors usually result to tragic consequences for the patients such adverse drug events that are preventable, 20 percent of which are life- threatening. The article also indicates that medical errors are costly and they result to financial costs that are tremendous. This article has many essential lessons for a health practitioner (The Leap Frog Group, 2008). For example, I learned that computerized physician order entry can be used to avoid and reduce medical errors. Other methods that can be used to prevent errors include such things as a CPOE standard evaluation tools. As a health practitioner, one can adapt these lessons by implementing an effective CPOE evaluation tool that can be used to effectively reduce errors in medication. Computerization of order entry can also be an essential way of reducing medical errors as it can reduce errors that result from handwritten prescriptions or details that are illegible. Decimal point errors can also be considerably condensed with the utilization of computerized systems (The Leap Frog Group, 2008).

Conclusion

As it has been seen, medical errors can result to detrimental impacts on the health of the affected patients. As a result, the task of ensuring that medical errors are kept to a minimal should be taken as first priority so as to safeguard the lives of the patients.

References

Eurobarometer. (2005). Medical Errors. Special Eurobarometer 241/ Wave 64. 1 & 64. 3- TNS Opinion and Social. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_241_en.pdf

Halbach, J. L. & Sullivan, L. (2002). Medical errors and patient safety: a curriculum guide for teaching medical students and family practice residents. New York Medical College Department of Family Medicine. http://www.nymc.edu/fammed/medicalerrors.pdf

The Leap Frog Group. (2008). Computerized physician order entry. The Leap Frog Group. Retrieved from http://www.leapfroggroup.org/media/file/Leapfrog-Computer_Physician_Order_Entry_Fact_Sheet.pdf