Medical Errors in Hospitals Paper Example

Introduction

Medical error is a preventable event or adverse implication of care whether it is detrimental or manifests to the patient and it arises when medication is used inappropriately. Medical errors are a fundamental threat to any patient's safety. In the US, hospital medical errors are identified as the third leading cause of mortality and morbidity (Shanafelt, Sinsky & Swensen, 2017). Reducing and eliminating medical errors in the hospital has become an essential approach in the course of improving the safety of the patients. In as much as drugs can save lives, they can ideally become haphazard which causes harm to the healthcare and patient.

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Multiple studies have been conducted to address medical error issues since many people die daily across the globe which could be prevented. Over the past year as well as presently, reducing and averting medication errors and reducing adverse drug events has become a significant course for healthcare systems. Nonetheless, it is vastly acknowledged that professional and highly trained healthcare experts will make mistakes. When investigating medication errors, the tendency has been that they originate from negligence by a healthcare provider. However, presently, it is established that many of the medication errors can also upsurge due to the inadequacy of systems which eventually causes adverse mistakes by providers. Errors are bound to occur in any phase of the medical procedure. Instead of creating punitive strategies, the primary approach is to emphasize the prevention and to formulate methods for reducing adverse medication events and errors.

There is a wide range of literature on medical errors in hospitals and healthcare settings especially relating to the implementation of prevention strategies, structuring, quality of care, shortcomings, inpatient, organized delivery, electronic medical record and many more. This paper presents an extensive analysis, evaluation of evidence as well as a conceptual model of literature which can offer insight to the study of medical errors in hospitals.

Review of Literature

Bektas and Yardimci (2018), seeks to establish what parents and guardians view in regards to medical errors. This study focused on parents with children aged three to six years. It determined that parents who considered a situation to be medical error would most likely require disclosure as well as reporting. In a study of a sample of 151 nurses, Korhan, Dilemek, Mercan and Yilmaz (2017) investigates the attitudes of nurses in medical errors. They established that most nurses in hospitals are mindful of the causes of medical errors and the need for issuing notifications in such situations.

Other studies have focused on identifying the potential causes of medical errors. Hayes, Jackson, Davidson, and Power, (2015) posit that medication errors in hospitals are common due to disruptions to nursing practice in the process of administration of a medication. Frith, Anderson, Fan, and Fong (2014) identifies how health care providers staffing can contribute and also prevent medication errors in a community hospital setting. This study also acknowledges that increasing the number of registered nurses working hours and reducing Licensed Practical Nurses hours would be utilized in an approach to decrease medical errors. The role of some factors' contribution towards medical error might be overestimated. Some of these factors include clinical experience and working hours. According to organizational elements of a hospital play an essential role in medical errors (Evangelia, Efharis and Anthony (2017). A major gap in these studies that focus on the causes is about the best sustainable approaches which can be adopted by the providers to facilitate the safety in managing interruptions in a clinical setting.

Other scholars have investigated the best approaches through which medical errors can be reduced in a hospital setting. Jindal and Raziuddin (2018) exemplify how effective utilization of electronic medical record (EMR). The study presents a relationship between electronic medical records application in a medical environment and the reduction in the errors. DonHee, Sang and Schniederjans (2015) however, presents a study on how employee gratification with the support of the medical facility and its framework coupled with the organizational culture can influence medical error reduction. Emphatically, Solmaz, Azadeh, Farzaneh, Morteza and Zahra (2017) discusses the importance of clinical interventions in reducing adverse drug events. They also delve into the use of drug utilization evaluation to comprehensively determine variability in the use of medicine.

Evaluation of Evidence

The works of literature reviewed in this paper are quite essential as they contribute invaluable knowledge in this area of study. However, they exhibit gaps in the literature particularly around nursing and administration of medication. Acknowledged as primary nursing practice, the administration of medication is an involving course of action which present prospective risks to the health care and to the patient in any case an error occurs. Acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the entire activities surrounding administration of medication would facilitate the identification of avenues to develop and improve.

The various anticipations on the standards of practice which points out the safe, experienced and ethical care are developed. Bektas and Yardimci (2018) profile multiple topics and sample cases which are extensively analyzed in an evidence-based approach to patient safety, medical error, and quality of healthcare. The submission of two cases (1 and 2) which are highly considered circumstances of medical errors by participants (91.7% and 95% respectively) elaborated the scope of the research (Bektas & Yardimci, 2018). The response as percentage indicated the levels of severity of each medical error in the cases. It highlights that most parents are usually aware of medical errors it is, therefore, recommendable that they should take active roles in the healthcare of their children to aid in minimizing chances of the errors.

Korhan's et al., (2017), the study is specifically intriguing; its findings support this study's scope which seeks to not only look at nurses' attitudes and commitment but also other related factors. For instance, other factors would entail nurses without relevant aptitude on facets of the provision of medication and human health which would lead to medical error events. The inadequacy of nurses, tiredness, unreasonable working hours, among other factors can also prompt medical errors. This study has utilized a definitive and an analytical model with 151 participants, and the data was collected using two forms which makes it a more reputable technique.

Hayes et al., (2015) study are relevant to the research in contributing knowledge towards preparing nurses to safely undertake the activities of medication administration in hospitals with firm confidence when they encounter interruptions. However, little is described on how the providers handle distractions and how they may gain the courage to manage different types of interruptions during medication administration.

Conceptual Model

This paper has extensively presented published research in various contexts of medical error which ultimately aids in building the conceptual framework related to medication administration safety measures which can be put forth by health care providers. The selected topics entail cause of medical errors, the perspective of parents and health care providers, disruptions during medication administration, nurse staffing, early detection by pharmacists, nurse attitude and satisfaction and work burnout.

Work Environment

An enabling work environment has been acknowledged to be decisive in the reduction of medical errors. Researchers have established staffing and interruptions as major contributors to medical errors (Frith et al., 2014). When the patient to nurse ratio is unrealistic, nurses continually exhibit divided attention in grappling with multiple needs of many patients.

Team Factors

Correspondence and coordination among health care providers are linked to quality care. It implies that physician-nursing mutual understanding promotes the reduction of medical errors as it goes a long way in proper prescription and selection of drugs. Failure and poor communication approach commonly cause adverse events.

Support Services

A nursing component that has many forms of medication-based support services, as well as an effectively implemented EMR, is less probable to have cases of medication errors. Some of the services are automated medication administrations which are built with precision to eliminate medication errors. They are modeled to standardize and exemplify the procedures undertaken by health professionals they reduce the potential human error of administering medication. As such, a health care setting with such services is expected to have fewer cases of medical errors.

Conclusion

Summarily, this paper reviewed the literature on medical errors which are presented in a range of topics. Regrettably, medical mistakes account to over 200,000 mortalities in the US alone every year which makes it one of the leading cause of deaths. Therefore, studies focused on this area should substantially deliberate on potential causes of medical error with the aim of proposing various alternatives to averting and reducing the medical errors events. Medical error is a preventable event or adverse implication of care whether it is detrimental or manifests to the patient and it arises when medication is used inappropriately. Medical errors are a fundamental threat to any patient's safety.

References

Bektas, I., & Yardimci, F. (2018). What do parents think of medical errors?. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 379.

DonHee, L., Sang M., L., & Schniederjans, M. J. (2011). Medical error reduction: The effect of employee satisfaction with organizational support. Service Industries Journal, 31(8), 1311-1325. doi:10.1080/02642060903437592.

Frith, K. H., Anderson, E. F., Fan, T., & Fong, E. A. (2014). Nurse staffing is an important strategy to prevent medication errors in community hospitals. Nursing Economic, 31(5), 288.

Hayes, C., Jackson, D., Davidson, P., & Power, T. (2015). Medication errors in hospitals: A literature review of disruptions to nursing practice during medication administration. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 24(21-22), 3063-3076. doi: 10.1111/jocn.12944.

Korhan, E. A., Dilemek, H., Mercan, S., & Yilmaz, D. U. (2017). Determination of attitudes of nurses in medical errors and related factors. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 10(2), 794.

Shanafelt, T., Sinsky, C., & Swensen, S. (2017). Medical errors and preventable deaths in U.S. hospitals - NEJM Catalyst. Retrieved from https://catalyst.nejm.org/medical-errors-preventable-deaths/.

Solmaz, H., Azadeh, E., Farzaneh, H., Morteza, T., & Zahra, S. (2017). Role of clinical pharmacists in early detection, reporting and prevention of medication errors in a medical ward. Journal of Pharmaceutical Care, Vol 3, Iss 3-4, Pp 54-60 (2017), (3-4), 54.

Tsiga, E., Panagopoulou, E., & Montgomery, A. (2017). Examining the link between burnout and medical error: A checklist approach. Burnout Research, 6, 1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.burn.2017.02.002.