Why It Is Essential To Take Prevention Of Medical Errors Course

By Deanne Shepard


In cases of illnesses or emergencies, patients look up to their healthcare providers for assistance. They are all dedicated to offering health solutions to those in poor health. However, some patients get well, others fail to get well. In spite of the fact that health professionals give their best services, medical errors still exist in hospitals and it they have cost lives and led to disabilities. Taking a prevention of medical errors course, therefore becomes crucial among doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and laboratory technicians.

Medical mistakes increase expenses due to the additional patient care. In cases of serious mistakes, devastating consequences arise where lives of patients can be lost. Legal cases might ensure where patients sue the doctors and healthcare facilities. A healthcare provider may even lose his or her license or be suspended. It also affects patients and families greatly in case of lifelong complications.

Most of these mistakes occur in a healthcare setting such as hospitals, clinics, laboratories, theatres, intensive care units, pharmacies, casualties, radiology rooms, and in the wards. Some of mistakes occurring in healthcare centers are usually caused by healthcare providers. They are, as a result of carelessness and can be prevented.

Surgeries can also go wrong. An error could lead to bleeding to death, damage to a major nerve, or even result to infections if asepsis is ignored. Wrong diagnosis could lead to an error. Some conditions often manifest in similar signs and symptoms where a doctor misses the correct diagnosis and treats a wrong disease.

Mistakes could occur because of poor anesthesia administration, or error on the environment and equipment sterilization. In drugs stores, pharmacist may give the wrong drugs, commit labeling errors when dispensing drugs, and poor explanation to patient on medicine usage. Poor communication between patient and healthcare providers can lead to misdiagnosis.

Ignorance and lack of educating patients may lead to such mistakes. Doctors and nurses may ignore some important routine procedures such as turning immobile patients thus leading to development of some complications such as decubitus ulcers. This adds more risks to the patients by contracting infections.

Poor handling of equipment during procedures has also cost transfer of infections from patients to healthcare providers. Wrong laboratory results, poor reporting and assumptions have caused missed diagnosis of very dangerous microbes in body. These are some of the few consequences of medical faults occurring in hospitals and clinics.

To eradicate most of these preventable mistakes many health learning institutions have introduced a course in prevention of medical errors where all health professionals including doctors, physicians, nurses, nutritionists, laboratory technicians, and nurse aids are encouraged to undertake as part of their training so as to acquire information and skills to help eliminate common mistakes. The course encompasses strategies set to prevent different kinds of faults and guidelines on how to prevent and treat diseases.




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