The inability to eliminate preventable medical errors is a major healthcare issue that undermines the nation’s health and does not allow medical facilities to provide effective and quality services. Therefore, it is essential to finally address the issue of medical errors and find a way to educate medical workers about how to prevent them.
According to researchers, in 2019, preventable medical errors were “responsible for 250,000 to 440,000 deaths a year in the United States, making them the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer” (Luciano, 2019, para. 2). Their financial cost is also extremely high, which has adverse effects on the county’s economy.
These are the reasons why the support of the legislator is essential:
- to increase people’s awareness of the severity of the problem;
- to make sure that the necessary steps aimed at preventing medical errors are taken (Luciano, 2019);
- to find more legislators who are ready to help address the issue.
Solving the problem and reducing the number of preventable medical errors has many implications for the nursing profession and patients. For example, it can reduce mortality and improve patient safety because the staff will know exactly what to do in order not to make a mistake (Rodziewicz et al., 2021). Further, the elimination of errors can strengthen teamwork and collaboration in hospitals (Luciano, 2019). Finally, patients will begin to trust the professionals and their treatment plans, which will ensure that they follow them and avoid self-medication.
It is desirable to see two recommendations happen related to the discussed issue. First, there needs to be a special program that provides ongoing training for medical workers and educates them on how to avoid an error or what to do after a mistake is made. Second, it is vital to propose proprietary names for medications to eliminate confusion among drugs (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2019).
References
Luciano, M. (2019). We know medical error is a deadly problem. Why haven’t we fixed it?The Boston Globe.
Rodziewicz, T. L., Houseman, B., & Hipskind, J. E. (2021). Medical error reduction and prevention. StatPearls Publishing.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2019). Working to reduce medication errors. FDA.