Question

Why medical errors occur? What can you do to avoid it?

Answer 1

MEDICAL ERRORS

Medical errors mostly human errors are those adverse effects which can be prevented this includes inaccurately or incompletely diagnosing the individual condition, inappropriate treatment of a disease, injury, infection and behaviour.

Causes

• Poor communication within the physician, nurses or other health care professionals
• Health care professionals fail to follow hospital care standards, policies and procedures
• Patient related issues includes inappropriate patient assessment and patient identification, fail to obtain informed consent from the patient, providing inadequate patient education
• Patient transferred from one hospital to another if there is insufficient flow of information
• Inadequate training and insufficient education to the health care providers
• Insufficient staffing pattern
• Failure of medical devices, grafts and implants

Prevention of medical errors

• Strictly follow the five rights of drug administration
• Doctor prescription should be clear and legible able to read by others
• Double check the patient identification band
• Document complete information
• Appropriate storage of medication to maintain proper medication efficacy
• Strictly follow the Hospital policies and procedure
• Adequate training of health care providers