Introduction
Medical error may refer to inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis/treatment of a disease, or issuing wrong medication. In addition, medical error may also involve surgical mistakes like doing a procedure on the wrong patient or at the wrong site. Over the years, there have been a rising number of preventable medical errors, which are caused by negligence of the medical staff (Youngberg, p.4). Medical errors result to complications on the patients; for example drug complications, wound infections, technical complications, and sometimes death. Normally, medical errors have consequences on both the practitioners and the patients, with some of the consequences being law suits, compensations, and finding and implementing improvements of activities (Jenick, 2010, P. xvi).
Generally, medical errors are of three types, the first being ‘close call’ error, which occurs, but detected and corrected in time before harmful effects arise. The second type occurs but does not produce adverse effects, while the third error produces adverse effect on the patient (Liu, 2003, p.82). All these errors have a high cost associated with them, hence there is need to lower costs and improve the quality of health care provided.
To achieve this, constant monitoring of the health care system by a non-partisan party should be enhanced. However, some errors are because of medical practitioners tending to under-use medical facilities, i.e. ignoring to perform tests, resulting to wrong diagnosis and thus, error. Nevertheless, reporting of medical error is essential as it can be used as a base of more research and disciplinary action if any negligence was involved.
What Do You Think about the Term “Medical Error”?
Medical practitioners are bound to make errors like in any other professional, but due to the effects that these errors have, the practitioners should always seek ways to reduce them. Primarily, medical errors are influenced by external factors like the environment, working conditions, pressure, technological accidents, and administrative systems. In addition, high number of patient in health care center, few staff, inadequate staff training, and mandatory overtime are some of the factors that promote the occurrence of medical error (Edelman and Mandle, 2005, p.58).
In the recent years, the occurrence of medical errors seems frequent, thus the need for studying the causes and devising ways to prevent and control them. Generally, the frequency of these errors can indicate a decline in quality of service by a practitioner or a certain health facility (Edelman and Mandle, 2005).
From a different perspective, medical errors can be classified into either psychological or reason, whereby psychological error reflects the failure of a planned goal to achieve a set goal while reason error may involve slips and lapses, which are errors of action or mistakes which are errors of knowledge and planning (Athanasiou and Darzi, 2009, p.258).
Medical errors are bound to be covered up due to the repercussion of revealing the same, which could be media condemnation, denial of license or legal fines. Although some errors may be unconsciously committed, there are practitioners who engage in errors out of malice and intentions. Generally, cover-ups are enabled because there are no proper policies of reporting medical errors in some countries. However, mandatory reporting of medical errors has been cited to reduce medical error in hospitals in New York (Schulman and Kim, 2000).
Some causes of medical error include communication breakdown between the medical practitioners and the patients, increase of specialization and fragmentation of health care, human error due to overwork, manufacturing error, and diagnostic error (Frey, 2000). In seeking the cause of medical error, the focus should not be laid on the practitioners’ performance, rather, on the systems and processes performance. Nevertheless, it is clear that no one individual practice can result to adverse outcome, but a range of other contributing factors (Schulman, Kim, 2000).
Does It Accurately Describe an Adverse Medical Outcome?
Not all medical errors result to adverse medical conditions, as adverse outcome can occur even without an error occurring. Generally, adverse error can be preventable, negligence adverse event mainly because some medical errors could be prevented with the available medical knowledge. Some of the harmful outcomes can be indicated by morbidity, reduced mortality rate, loss of body weight, destruction of body functions (Athanasiou and Darzi, 2009, p.258). On the other hand, side effects are likely to affect the patients or lead to drug resistance, both of which may be either serious effects or non-serious effects. Moreover, adverse effects are either reversible or non-reversible; however, serious adverse effects may lead to complications associated with death, hospitalization, or permanent damage.
Generally, medical error that occur during medical procedures, both surgical and non-surgical, or drug administration may result to adverse outcomes. For instance, wrong medication can lead to addiction. In addition, medical errors may lead to death or physical disability like loss of sight, as well as facilitate the development of other secondary ailments apart from the original condition the patient had (Athanasiou, Darzi, 2009, p.262). Other effects include abortions and birth defects, and psychological disturbances; for example, a physician failing to identify the kind of drug a patient is taking and prescribing other drugs that interact with the initial drug, causing dangerous effects.
The Health Care Delivery System Operating Free of Medical Errors
Errors are far beyond the conscience control of the medical practitioner since they are influenced by a wide range of other factors (Athanasiou, Darzi, 2009, p.258). Primarily, medical errors can only be prevented from occurrence by putting up measure that would mitigate; however, they cannot be completely ruled out. The existence of health care system that operate free from error does not entirely depend on the medicine practices but also in disciplines of psychology and human factors like human limitation and fallibility. In developing an error reporting system that provides information on the magnitude and type of error, it is important to use of electronic medical order and eliminate resembling brand names, which can go a long way to prevent medical errors (Liu, 2003, p.82).
Other factors that can facilitate a free-medical error health system include introduction of working shifts in order to eliminate staff burnout, adequate staffing, and optimal provision of essential facilities in health centers. According to Edelman and Mandle (2005, p. 58), study indicates that the health system is the primary cause of medical error and not medical practitioners. Therefore, introduction of computerized data and record keeping systems can aid the medical practitioners to keep memorizing important information about a client, hence reduce the chances of error. Moreover, proper labeling and packaging of medicine can avoid confusion during drug distribution in pharmacies.
Is There a Better Term to Convey the Range of Adverse Outcomes?
There are other terms used to express the range of adverse effects, which include mistake, lapse, and slips. Clear distinction must be made between adverse outcome and expected complication from a certain treatment. Expected complications are the documented effects that could arise due to consumption of a certain medication; these expected outcomes should be revealed to the patients in order to assist them to make sound decisions (Frey, 2000). However, there is no better term of conveying adverse outcomes of medical error due to the thin line between what is natural and unnatural.
Conclusion
According to Schulman and Kim (2000), “medical errors are caused by systematic problems in health care delivery, rather than poor performance by individual providers.” The effects of medical error can lead to many complications and sometimes to death. Although some errors are detected in time and corrected, some are not and they can bring adverse consequences. However, reporting of medical error has improved the health care service in regions where there is mandatory policy for reporting errors. Moreover, reporting of medical errors and constant monitoring of healthcare also assists in reducing the cases of medical errors in the future.
A healthcare system with no errors is not conceivable, since the causes of errors are mostly beyond the conscious control of the practitioners. (Athanasiou, Darzi, 2009, p.258). Primarily, medical errors can only be prevented from occurrence by putting up measure Nevertheless, some strategies can be put in place to minimize the number of medical errors namely proper staffing, training, planning, and proper administration of healthcare system. Moreover, some factors that can influence medical error include practitioners’ rigidity to a particular mode of treatment and lack of background history of the patient
There are no other terms of conveying the range of adverse outcomes resulting from medical error. Generally, loss of life, psychological disturbances, or other permanent physical disability can result from medical error. Nevertheless, accidents are unplanned, unexpected, and undesirable, and they cause an adverse outcome.
References
Athanasiou, T. & Darzi, A. (2009). Key Topics in Surgical Research and Methodology. London: Springer. Web.
Edelman, C. & Mandle, C. (2005). Health promotion throughout the life span. NY: Elsevier Health Sciences. Web.
Frey, R. (2010). Surgery encyclopia. Web.
Jenicek, M. (2010). Medical Error and Harm: Understanding, prevention, and control. NJ: Taylor & Francis print. Web.
Liu, X. (2003). Policy tools for allocative efficiency of health services. Geneva: World Health Organization. Web.
Schulman, K. and Kim, J. (2000). Medical errors: how the US Government is addressing the problem. Web.
Youngberg, B. (2010). Principles of risk management and patient safety. NJ: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Web.