The Role of Preventing Medical Errors In Hospitals - Essay Example

Health Care Dysfunctions and their Solutions: The Role of Preventing Medical Errors In Hospitals One of the biggest problems that beset our health care system nowadays is medication errors. Many people die each year from preventable cases of medical prescription errors (Institute of medicine 2007) and many more barely escapes nonfatal harm from these medical prescription errors (Pepper G. 2006). Medical professionals are sworn not to do harm to their patients yet human errors are most likely to set it when the medical professional concerned is overworked, stressed out or burnout. Although nurses may not be the person who made the wrong prescription, nurses do have the responsibility to check whether or not the other medical professionals have committed errors along the medication chain order and they must ensure that they themselves do not commit mistakes in administering the medication (Pepper G. 3006). There are many factors that affect the delivery of the services in many hospitals and clinics all over the country. These factors can be classified in two major groups namely, the human factor and the systems factors. When it comes to human factor, one of the leading reasons why medication errors occur is that nurses who are on duty are too tired and stressed out to function well. There is a clear shortage of nurses and medical professionals in the country today, thus it common for nurses and other medical professionals to render more than 8 hours of service daily. In many cases, nurses work for 12 straight hours, making them too tired to deliver the best care at times. Due to the long hours of work, burnout usually sets in. Although these nurses never really wanted to get sloppy on their jobs, they cannot help but feel too tired and too groggy to work efficiently. Lack of sleep can be a very dangerous thing especially when you are dealing with patients and medicines. Because of the shortage of nurses in hospitals, nurses are given more and more patients to care for during their shift. Since the nurse is now overloaded with work, his or her attention will now be too divided to focus on his or her task. In many cases, more than two patients may require the attention of the nurse at the same. Given this situation, a harassed and stressed out nurse is more likely to commit errors. According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, hospitals with high patient-to-nurse ratios have higher failure to rescue rates compared to hospitals will lower patient-to-nurse ratios (Aiken L., Clarke S., sloade D., Sockalski J and Silber, J. 2003). Consequently, these hospitals that are short in nurses suffer high mortality rate among their patients that it is not uncommon for patients to become fearful about the kind of medical service that they will get from these hospitals. The low morale that follows the loss of patients can greatly affect the work performance of nurses. Nurses are overworked and are exposed to loss many patients in a month often experience burnout and job dissatisfaction (Aiken L., Clarke S., sloade D., Sockalski J and Silber, J. 2003). This scenario is really understandable especially when the nurse is committed to preventing harm and saving lives. The feeling of helplessness in the face of death is such an unnerving experience for most nurses that they become disillusioned about their job (Maindonald M, Richardson AM, 2004) that they eventually quit their job. To prevent human errors in the administration of medicines to patients, nurses should not be allowed to work longer than 8 hours a day (Reason R 2004). Nurses should be given enough rest periods for them to be able to work well during their shifts. We must always bear in mind that nurses are human beings too and they need to take care of themselves first before they can efficiently offer care to their patients. In relations with this, nurses should be given a vacation leave. They should not be allowed to “cash in” their vacation leave by working on those days that they should be out taking a vacation. Hospitals should also look into the workload of the nurse and to reduce the ratio between patients and nurses in the hospital. The lesser number of patients per nurse in given shift will help a lot in preventing medication errors. Moreover, a strong support system among nurses in the hospital is very important to help the nurses stay focus on their job. By establishing a closer bond and teamwork in the workplace, nurses and other medical professionals can support each other. When it comes to systems factors affecting medication errors, hospitals should take a closer look into their systems. Note that there are many segments in the medication process where errors could easily be committed. If you take a closer look into the flow of medication, you go through several steps before the medicine finally arrives in the hands of the patients. From the time the doctor prescribes medicine for the patient, there is already a potential miscommunication. Some doctors use different kinds of abbreviations that can be confusing to nurses. To make sure that nothing is misunderstood in the prescription, hospitals should impost guidelines when it comes to writing prescriptions. A system should be established to prevent misunderstandings. Since errors in dosage are one of the common factors that endanger the patients in hospitals nowadays, hospitals should establish as protocol when it comes to counter checking of dosage of medicine that is given to a patient. Nurses should always counter check the amount of medicine to be given to the patients. Although a study show that about 58% of all medication errors are already intercepted by nurses (Bates D, Cullen D, Cooper J, et al 1995 cited in Chilton (2006), this figure is not really good enough to safeguard the health of the patients. Nurses should take a pro-active role in incepting wrong medications to patients to prevent the loss of lives. However, this pro-active role in safeguarding the patients against wrongful medications can only be realized if the nurses are not too overwhelmed with work. The shortage of nurses is one of the leading causes for the inefficiency of many hospitals in the country today. To solve this problem of shortage of nurses, it is imperative that hospitals should take an active role in recruiting new nurses and keeping the old ones happy enough to stay on their job. Since there is less number of Americans who are willing to undergo the nurses’ training course, hospitals should look into the possibility of recruiting nurses from other parts of the world. References: 1. Aiken L., Clarke S., sloade D., Sockalski J and Silber, J. (2003) Hospital Nurse Staffing and patient mortality, Nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction; Journal of the American Medical Association October 23/30, 2003 – Vol. 288, No. 16 2. Bates D, Cullen D, Cooper J, et al. (1995) Systems analysis of adverse drug events. JAMA. 1995;274:1599-1603 3. Institute of Medicine. To err is human: building a safer health system. Available at: http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/4/117/ToErr-8pager.pdf. accessed August 12, 2007 4. Lynn L. Chilton (2006) Medication Error Prevention for Healthcare Providers  University of Alabama available at  http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/550273 accessed August 12, 2007 5. Maindonald M, Richardson AM. (2004) This passionate study: a dialogue with Florence Nightingale. J Stat Educ. 2004;12:1-11 6. Pepper G. (2006) Do no harm: medication safety for the GNP. Program and abstracts of the National Conference of Gerontological Nurse Practitioners 25th Annual Conference; September 27-October 1, 2006; Jacksonville, Florida. 7. Reason R. (2000) Human error: models and management. Br Med J.;320:768-770 8. Stolberg S.G. (August 8, 2002) Patient Deaths Tied To Lack of Nurses. New York Times August 8, 2002; A18 Read More