Introduction Root cause analysis is a tool used by many businesses to determine why an event happened. This process is still rather new to the health care sector. In health care, root cause analysis can be helpful in several ways but there are limitations to its usefulness as well. The process for conducting a root cause analysis is not lengthy in terms of steps; however, it can take time to find all of the mitigating factors involved with the incident. The case study provided is a classic example of when and why a root cause analysis should be used in a health care setting. In addition, the discussion provided within the case study supports the use of root cause analysis in health care. Root Cause Analysis and When it is Used Root cause …show more content…
First, the goals of root cause analysis include a fair and unbiased determination of the underlying reasons that the error occurred (Williams, 2008). Specifically, root cause analysis helps the organization to determine the what, when, how and why of the situation as well as how to prevent the error from reoccurring (Williams, 2008). Discovering the what, when, how and why of a specific situation and finding the proper measures to prevent the situation in the future are, therefore, the goals of root cause …show more content…
These steps are as follows: 1. Define the problem (Hambleton, 2005). During this defining phase, investigators are able to determine the basics of the error - or the what, when, how and why of the issue (Hambleton, 2005). In this case, incorrect medication dosage is the what, the when is upon treatment in the emergency department and the how is simply a mistake made by medical personnel. However, the why is still unknown. 2. Develop a list of causes, whether major or minor, that could have resulted in the never event occurrence (Hambleton, 2005). During this step, the incident will be separated into causes and listed so the investigators can determine the underlying cause of the incident (Hambleton, 2005). By listing the causes, investigators can get a clearer picture of where the incident started. Did staff fail to confirm the dosage amount? Was there a breakdown of communication between emergency room staff? Did the pharmacy make an error? Was the dosage/medication checked by subsequent staff involved with the patient 's care? In other words, this discovery phase will alert investigators to the causes and their effects and determine the why or why
In the case study identify the incident and explain the problem that might trigger a root cause analysis. In this case study, a patient admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with septic shock requiring vasopressors that suffered an MI in the course of his treatment due to vasopressin overdose as the incident. The problem that triggered a root cause analysis was likely related to a log increase in the dose of vasopressin because of a prescribing error, pharmacy issues also figured prominently in this error, the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system that did not eliminate medication errors and domino effect to the nurse that started the medication that eventually caused the patient to have an MI. The patient in this case was receiving the medication vasopressin, at a dose of 0.4 units/min, a dosage used for gastrointestinal hemorrhage and variceal bleeding rather than the correct dose of 0.04 units/min for treating shock. The vasopressin order was incorrectly written by a resident physician after he received a verbal order from his supervising critical care fellow (Flanders, S. & Saint, S., 2005).
Chasing Zero is a documentary which was meant to both educate the viewer on the prevalence of medical harm as well as to enlighten both the public and health care providers on the preventability of these events (Discovery, 2010). The documentary expounded on the fact each year more people die each year from a preventable medical error than die due to breast cancer, motor vehicle accidents or AIDS (Institute of Medicine, 1999). Medical harm can result from adverse drug events, surgical injuries, wrong-site surgery, suicides, restraint-related injuries, falls, burns, pressure ulcers and mistaken patient identities (Institute of Medicine, 1999). Incidences of medical error have been reported in the media for many years. The most startling revelation in the documentary is how common medical errors are and how preventable they are.
Hospitals are busy places, and with so much going on it is hard to believe that mistakes are not made. However, there are some accidents that should never happen. Such events have been termed ‘never events’ because they are never supposed to happen. This term was first introduced by Ken Kizer, MD, in 2001 (US, 2012). The Joint Commission has classified never events as sentinel events and asks that hospitals report them. A sentinel event is defined as, “an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physiological or psychological injury, or the risk thereof” (US, 2012). Never events are termed sentinel events because in the past 12 years 71% of the events reported were fatal (US, 2012). Because these events are never supposed to happen, many insurance companies will not reimburse the hospitals when they occur. A study in 2006, showed that the average hospital could experience a case of wrong-site surgery, one example of a never event, only once every 5 to 10 years (US, 2012). This study illustrates how rare a never event is. Hospitals do not want these never events to happen any more than a patient does. To help prevent these errors, hospitals have created policies that, if followed, will minimize the possibility of a mistake. The consequences of never events are devastating and because of this the goal is to make sure that they are eradicated from hospitals and medical facilities.
Module two deals with external influences in healthcare administration and the conflicts that may cause lack of growth in the organization. External influences can range from society, stakeholders, staff, and patients. Health administrators should be in agreement with staff and physicians to maintain proper ethics and safety for everyone. Society has a big influence of healthcare organizations with spending their money towards health insurance, medication, treatment services and exams. As long the healthcare organization has a well reputation built on trust, then consumers will spend on that healthcare organization. The stakeholders that take part in external influences on ethics are the vendors, technology specialists, maintenance, insurance
The world of healthcare changes every day. Technology, as we know it evolves and changes the actual care that patients receive and even post care as well. It has been determined that most faults are caused by system failures. When a break in the system has occurred it must then be decided where the,” inefficiencies, ineffective care and preventable errors” to then influence changes within the broken system (Hughes, 2008). Improvements sometimes can begin with measurements and benchmarks which in turn will allow organizations to assess the trouble spots and broken areas within the system. Many times those broken areas within the system will be owned by the humans who operate within these systems. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM)
Baccalaureate nurses are responsible for providing and ensure our patients safety. The knowledge from others mistakes can help informs nurses of extra precautions that we can take to ensure our patient’s safety. Risk Analysis and Implication for practice course helped me understand the steps I as a nurse can take as well as the facilities I work for to help reduce the number of medication errors that occur. Interviewing the pharmacist help me get a better insight to what facilities already have in place to help prevent medication errors. However like most things you have to have educated and compassionate caring staff to enforce and follow the guidelines set in place.
Furthermore, short staffing affects the quality direct care each patient receives. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (2012) states an estimated 98,000 individuals die every year from medical errors in the United States. One out of many significant tasks nurses do within their scope of practice is medication administration. Research shows a relationship between short staffing on medication errors: the longer the hours nurses work, the higher the chances of medication errors (Garnett, 2008). (include definition of medication error) Administering medications requires knowledge of patient rights, pharmacological information on the drug, adverse effects, proper dosage calculations, and hospital protocols. When nurses are assigned more patients, they are pressured to give due medications on time. Sometimes due to hunger or fatigue, nurses give the wrong medication to the wrong patient (Frith, Anderson, Tseng, & Fong, 2012).
A root cause analysis is a systematic approach utilized to identify problems within an event and create a plan for preventing that problem from recurring in the future. To be effective, a timeline of the events are created to help identify those areas that may be the reason for the problem or event, and the relationship between the causal factors and those factors identified to be a reason for the event to have occurred.
Tzeng, H., Yin, C., & Schneider, T. E. (2013). Medication Error-Related Issues In Nursing Practice. MEDSURG Nursing, 22(1), 13-50.
Responsibility and accountability become important when medical staff gives or doses patients with medication. The chance for making a medication error presents itself at all times. Those passing medications must follow established policies and procedures developed and laid forth by t...
O’Shea, E (1999) Factors contributing to medication errors: a literature review. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 8, 5,496-503.
For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control their life changing decisions. There are multiple causes of patient harm, one of the major contributors are medication errors made by health care professional. Medication errors are inappropriate dispensing and administration of drugs which cause harmful effects such liver damage and excessive bleeding. Most cases of medication errors in hospitals occur as a result of wrong diagnosis by the doctors leading administration of inappropriate drug, poor communication between doctors and nurses and between patients and nurses who issue the drugs. However in an article by the International Journal of Nursing practice, in Australia many occurrences
What classifies as a Medication errors? An error can occur any time during the medication administration process. A medication error can be explained as “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer” (National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, 2014, para 1). Rather it is at prescribing, transcribing, dispensing or at the time of administration all these areas are equally substantial in producing possible errors that could potentially harm the patient (Flynn, Liang...
The health care is extremely important to society because without health care it would not be possible for individuals to remain healthy. The health care administers care, treats, and diagnoses millions of individual’s everyday from newborn to fatal illness patients. The health care consists of hospitals, outpatient care, doctors, employees, and nurses. Within the health care there are always changes occurring because of advance technology and without advance technology the health care would not be as successful as it is today. Technology has played a big role in the health care and will continue in the coming years with new methods and procedures of diagnosis and treatment to help safe lives of the American people. However, with plenty of advance technology the health care still manages to make an excessive amount of medical errors. Health care organizations face many issues and these issues have a negative impact on the health care system. There are different ways medical errors can occur within the health care. Medical errors are mistakes that are made by health care providers with no intention of harming patients. These errors rang from communication error, surgical error, manufacture error, diagnostic error, and wrong medication error. There are hundreds of thousands of patients that die every year due to medical error. With medical errors on the rise it has caused the United States to be the third leading cause of death. (Allen.M, 2013) Throughout the United States there are many issues the he...
The existing or traditional approach to reporting potential public health problems is a manual process reliant on individuals within individual hospitals/medical facilities to identify such potential threats or issues. Physicians or laboratories within the hospital identify any potential health risks and then compile a report on the issue. The identification of the issue/risk is reliant on individual hospitals tracking the volume numbers of patients with similar symptoms. This report is than faxed or posted to the local public health authority. The public health authority, on receipt of the report, will phone the hospital in question for any additional information it requires before it is in a position to make any decisions or taken any relevant preventative measures.