Errors are a part of human nature. However, in the medical sphere, the price of human error can be too high, as patients and their lives depend on everyday decisions and actions that doctors and nurses make. According to the BMJ, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, right after cancer and heart disease. Standing at 250,000 deaths per year, medical errors managed to surpass respiratory diseases and now constitute about 10% of all deaths in the US (Makary & Daniel, 2016). As such, this is a serious problem that must be addressed on individual, hospital, and community levels. Studies identify several main reasons for medical errors. These are long duty hours, inadequate experience, inadequate supervision, and complex case scenarios, where errors are common (Bari, Khan, & Rathore, 2016). Nurses play an important role in healthcare and can affect patient safety on all levels. Thus, it is their duty to promote quality healthcare and reduce the possibility of medical errors. A nurse can improve patient safety through personal action on an individual level, through research and valid suggestions on a hospital level, and through political action on a communal level.
Individual Level Safety Strategies
In order to promote client safety strategies on an individual level, it is necessary to look at what constitutes the majority of medical errors, and figure out what could be done in order to improve the situation. Long duty hours affect the nurses in a negative way, reducing their attentiveness and making them more prone to error (Stimpfel, Sloane, & Aiken, 2012). The only thing that could be done on an individual level is to know one’s limits and step aside when said limits are reached. Even the simplest medical procedures, when performed by a drowsy nurse, can lead to decreased efficiency and even danger.
Inadequate experience is the second cause of the medical error. Sometimes, new nurses have little experience with certain complex procedures that should be reserved for more experienced personnel (Bari et al., 2016). This can be remedied in two ways. A more experienced nurse can provide feedback and consultation in order to eliminate the chance of medical error. Alternatively, the procedure itself should be performed by a more experienced nurse in the first place.
Inadequate supervision relates to the previous two factors mentioned before. The nurse should always be alert not only to her own actions but to the actions of others. By forming a self-monitoring network among nurses, it would be possible to eliminate the majority of medical errors (Bari et al., 2016). Lastly, in the case of complex medical scenarios, a nurse should always request peer assistance and refer to more experienced nurses for help. A decision made together is less likely to be erroneous, as chances of spotting a potential mistake improve significantly.
At this stage of medical error prevention, patients play an important role. Instead of waiting passively for the medical personnel to make a decision, they should actively participate in the process. Being attentive to instructions, asking for explanations in regards to medical procedures and medications, and not causing any conflicts would significantly reduce the chances of medical error (Black, 2013).
Hospital-Level Safety Strategies
Hospitals implement a number of strategies that are aimed at preventing and reducing the number of medical errors. These programs are mostly aimed at preventing direct contamination of the patients from unsterile medical equipment, hospital discharge control, patient education, shift duration limitations, and effective management (Karla, Karla, & Baniak, 2013). The majority of healthcare facilities are aware of what is causing medical errors. However, the situation remains the same largely because these programs are not implemented widely enough. There are several roles a nurse could play in the implementation of these strategies. Being the front-line healthcare provider and having the most contact with the patients, a nurse can implement these hospital strategies directly and offer feedback on their implementation and effectiveness. Lastly, a nurse could propose changes to these strategies, based on personal experience and research.
Community-Level Strategies
There are several stakeholders involved in promoting patient safety strategies on a communal level. These stakeholders are nurses, government officials and legislators, hospital staff, and patients themselves. Each has a specific role in the process of healthcare. Nurses provide healthcare directly, hospital staff organizes the process, legislators provide laws under which hospitals operate, and patients are the recipients of medical care. On a communal level, a nurse can interact with patients during campaigns of patient awareness and exercise. By providing knowledge about patient rights, patient awareness, various diseases and afflictions that could be prevented, a nurse would indirectly affect medical error rates. The concept of preventive care resides on a statement that an illness is easier to prevent than to treat. By reducing the number of hospital admissions through preventive care, a nurse would reduce the chances of medical errors being committed.
Various nursing organizations play an important role in communication between other nurses, hospital staff, and communal legislative and political forces. There is strength in numbers, and promoting a healthcare-related initiative is much easier when there is an organization backing up a measure or a proposal. Nursing organizations have political weight and can promote change in hospitals or communities. Some steps that such organizations may take to reduce medical error is developed new guidelines and legislative initiatives to improve the quality of healthcare. Changing the medical system from 12-hour shifts to 8-hour shifts would also be a massive improvement, as nurse fatigue is a major source of medical errors (Stimpfel et al., 2012). In additions, nursing organizations serve as grounds for interaction and experience exchange between individual nurses. Learning from more experienced nurses offers an opportunity to grow as a professional and gain the experience necessary to avoid making medical errors in complicated situations. Almost every state has a nursing organization to represent itself, although the majority of them is concentrated around the country’s largest medical conglomerates and facilities. The most famous nursing associations in the USA are ANA (American Nurses Association), Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses, American Holistic Nurses Association, Emergency Nurses Association, and others (“North American nursing organizations,” n.d.). Together, these associations are capable of promoting patient safety on all levels, ranging from individual hospitals and localities to state and even country levels. Although on this scale, the efforts of an individual nurse are not very noticeable, it is the communal effort that could bring massive changes in healthcare on a community level. All stakeholders mentioned above are interested in reducing the number of medical errors, as nobody is immune to sickness and disease. The real challenge is to come up with effective working strategies on reducing patient error and implementing them on a large scale.
References
Bari, A., Khan, R.A., & Rathore, A.W. (2016). Medical errors; causes, consequences, emotional response and resulting behavioral change. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 32(3), 523-528.
Black, N. (2013). Patient reported outcome measures could help transform healthcare. BMJ, 346, 167.
Karla, J., Karla, N., & Baniak, N. (2013). Medical error, disclosure and patient safety: A global view of quality care. Clinical Biochemistry, 46(13), 1161-1169.
Makary, M.A., & Daniel, M. (2016). Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US. BMJ, 353(2139), 15-23.
North America nursing organizations. (n.d.). Web.
Stimpfel, A.W., Sloane, D.M., & Aiken, L.H. (2012). The longer the shifts for hospital nurses, the higher the levels of burnout and patient dissatisfaction. Health Affairs, 31(11), 2501-2509.