Question

1. According to Van Den Bos and colleagues (2011), a medical error is:
2. What causes these errors? Keers and colleagues conducted an extensive literature review of qualitative and quantitative studies of causes of medication administration errors (MAEs) in hospital settings. They found:

Answer 1

1. they described it as a preventable adverse outcome that come from improper medical management rather than due to progression of illness resulting from lack of care.

2. most common types of medical errors include: medication errors, errors related to anesthesia, hospital acquired infections, missed or delayed diagnosis, avoidable delay in treatment, inadequate follow-up after treatment, inadequate monitoring after a procedure, failure to act on test results, failure to take proper precautions, and technical medical errors

Slips and lapses were the most commonly reported unsafe acts, followed by knowledge-based mistakes and deliberate violations. Error-provoking conditions influencing administration errors included inadequate written communication (prescriptions, documentation, transcription), problems with medicines supply and storage (pharmacy dispensing errors and ward stock management), high perceived workload, problems with ward-based equipment (access, functionality), patient factors (availability, acuity), staff health status (fatigue, stress) and interruptions/distractions during drug administration. Few studies sought to determine the causes of intravenous MAEs. A number of latent pathway conditions were less well explored, including local working culture and high-level managerial decisions. Causes were often described superficially; this may be related to the use of quantitative surveys and observation methods in many studies, limited use of established error causation frameworks to analyse data and a predominant focus on issues other than the causes of MAEs among studies.