Are medical errors inevitable?
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Error is inevitable. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? What are the implications of accepting error as an essential constituent of delivering care? When you consider the possibility of error in healthcare, what feelings do you experience?
Please provide at least 2 paragraphs and use resources that do not include websites. Thank you.
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Solution Summary
Medical errors are inevitable in the healthcare industry. In the US, there are about 98000 people that die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented. The majority of the medical errors are from careless individuals or the actions of a particular groups. But under a new report, the individuals are not to blame for the medical errors; it is the "faulty system, processes, and conditions that lead individuals to make mistakes."
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Medical errors are inevitable in medicine. This is a true statement based on so many examples in the medical industry. For example, in the US, there are at least 44,000 people die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented. Errors in medicine are "the failure of planned action to be completed as intended or use of wrong plan to achieve an aim." (1, 2) The types of errors that can occur are improper transfusions, surgical injuries, wrong site surgery, suicides, restraint-related injuries or deaths, falls, burns, ulcers, and mistaken patient identities. There are also high risk errors that lead to serous consequences occurring in intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency departments. The types of errors fall into several categories such as diagnostic, treatment, preventive, and other. Under diagnostic, the error could be delay in diagnosis, failure to employ indicated tests; use of outmodel tests; and failure to act on results of monitoring or testing. Under treatment, the error may be the performance of an operation, procedure, or test; error in administering the treatment; errors in the dose or methods of using a drug; and avoidable delay in treatment. Under preventive, there is a failure to provide prophylactic treatment and inadequate monitoring or follow up of treatment. Other failure include the failure of communication, equipment failure, and other system failure. The medical errors are costly in terms of total costs, including expense of additional care by errors, lost income and household ...
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