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Errors in the health care system
Errors in the health care system
Malpractice impacts on healthcare
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The idea of someone dying at the somehow unskilled hands of a trained professional is surprising. Human error has been a problem since the early stages of medicine. There is such a high amount of it now, though, it is killing many people. So many people have been killed, malpractice is now at a point where people have ranked it very high on the leading cause of death. Medical professionals should be put on trial for malpractice because they are paid too much for errors, mistakes cause emotional distress, and accidents may render a patient brainless. To start, many medical professionals are paid too much to make room for mistakes. To quote the article by Mark L Graber, “diagnostic errors are costly,” (Graber). Doctors are paid a lot of money.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to a preventable medical error. A report written by the National Quality Forum (NQF) found that over a decade after the IOM report the prevalence of medical errors remains very high (2010). In fact a study done by the Hearst Corporation found that the number of deaths due to medical error and post surgical infections has increased since the IOM first highlighted the problem and recommended actions to reduce the number of events (Dyess, 2009).
Medical malpractice cases are difficult for the families who have lost their loved one or have suffered from severe injuries. No one truly wins in complicated court hearings that consist of a team of litigation attorneys for both the defendant and plaintiff(s). During the trial, evidence supporting malpractice allegations have to be presented so that the court can make a decision if the physician was negligent resulting in malpractice, or if the injury was unavoidable due to the circumstances. In these types of tort cases, the physician is usually a defendant on trial trying to prove that he or she is innocent of the medical error, delay of treatment or procedure that caused the injury. The perfect example of being at fault for medical malpractice as a result of delaying a procedure is the case of Waverly family versus John Hopkins Health System Corporation. The victims were not compensated enough for the loss of their child’s normal life. Pozgar (2012) explained….
I have been aware of medical errors for some time now. While in nursing school I have heard many stories from classmates and instructors of instances where people they knew, or loved ones had been either harmed or died because of a medical error. I have had experiences with medical errors. When I was in the hospital for the birth of my first child, the nurse that came to change out my IV bag did not check the
Medical malpractice lawsuits are an extremely serious topic and have affected numerous patients, doctors, and hospitals across the country. Medical malpractice is defined as “improper, unskilled or negligent treatment of a patient by a physician, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional” (Medical malpractice, n.d.). If a doctor acts negligent and causes harm to a patient, malpractice lawsuits arise. Negligence is the concept of the liability concerning claims of medical malpractice, making this type of litigation part of tort law. Tort law provides that one person may litigate negligence to recover damages for personal injury. Negligence laws are designed to deter careless behavior and also to compensate victims for any negligence.
A report done by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates a cost of approximately $37.6 billion dollars every year associated to medical errors occurring in in-patient settings or hospitals (AHRQ, 2000).
Explain the issue or dilemma using information from the readings in the book and other sources.
Firstly, every year there are many deaths associated with medical errors. Sarah Loughran writes, “An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002…” (medicalnewstoday.com) and this was just in 2000, 2001, and 2002 with the numbers bouncing higher or lower each year; nevertheless, there seems to be no end in sight for errors in the medical field. There is a way to lower these numbers drastically. The way to do this is by leveling the doctor to nurse ratio in hospitals thereby eliminating the stress factors on most nurses whom often have several patients to attend by themselves but no help in doing so. While demand for nurses may be high, there also comes a breaking point for any human being, “…factors including the high acuity of patients, inadequate nurse to patient ratios, increased work demand, and decreased resources.” (American
In saying 1.5 million Americans have witnessed hospital errors in the care of the medical center or even 40,000-100,000 deaths is a ridiculous amount of faults. Errors should be minimized, especially when dealing with people’s lives. The number of deaths is so high hospitals should take notice and really pinpoint where their facility is miscalculating and create in-service training to all employees and not just the ones that are making the errors but all employees. This will decrease the chances of errors made in the hospital. With continuous training every month there can be a huge change in the number of mistakes. The fact that these inaccuracies are even causing deaths really highlight the importance of the need for a change. Families
A medical error is not reasonably expected result of normal course of action, unsafe practice of medicine, or an outcome that was not anticipated. Medical errors can happen everywhere in the hospital, here are some examples; a patient on a low-salt diet given a high salt meal, treating the wrong patient, surgical equipment, being left inside the body during surgery, and even wrong site surgery. Errors also happen when doctors and their patients have problems communicating. For example, a recent study supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that doctors often do not do enough to help their patients make informed decisions (Saintsing 354). Uninvolved and uninformed patients are less likely to accept the doctor 's choice of treatment and less likely to do what they need to do to make the treatment work (Saintsing 356,357). Errors are all too frequent in medicine, Building a Safer Health System estimated that as many as 98,000 deaths, due to a medical error, occurs in the United States (Laure 770).
I personally feel that the life of a person is well above all policies and regulations and if an attempt to rescue him or her from death at the right time remains unfulfilled, it is not the failure of a doctor or nurse, it is the failure of the entire medical and health community.
A major problem of the legalization of euthanasia is that doctors are taking advantage of their power. These doctors are performing euthanasia for many reasons just to make their own lives easier. “When these doctors are brought to trial for these acts, they are rarely found guilty. Their excuse is that they are acting out of higher necessity for the hospital system, which is an accepted excuse in the courts” (Fenigsen). Involuntary euthanasia is another problem that is coming up often. According to Diane Gianelli from the American Medical News, 2,000 physicians claim to administer pain medications to kill their patients. This shows that these physicians are either incredibly unskilled at providing the appropriate dosage of pain medications, or they are purposely ending their patients lives without their consent. Euthanasia is also being used as an excuse for the doctors’ mistakes. “...
It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).
Patient safety has become a major concern in the healthcare sector because of the prevalence of medical errors. Patient safety has even stood out as its own ideal discipline and it encompasses certain areas of healthcare service provision such as reporting, analysis and prevention of medical errors (because of the upsurge of medical errors across the globe). Initially, medical errors were not considered a big issue in medical circles until there was an increased trend of medical errors across the globe which resulted into adverse medical events and a high number of patient deaths. This trend prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to carry out an assessment of the impact of medical errors across the globe and established that at least 1 in every 10 patient across the globe is normally affected by medical errors (World Health Organization 2008).
Statistics * Patient abandonment is viewed as medical malpractice when the ending result is a patient’s injury or death where events can lead back to the abrupt termination of patient care. The Institute of Medicine (Medical Malpractice, 2016) published a report, “To Err Is Human”, which focused on American hospitals. The statistics have drastically grown each year. According to (Medical Malpractice, 2016), all together there are 225,000 Americans who die from all forms of medical malpractice.
...ue to numerous medical errors. With the amount of medical errors that currently do occur which is a current health care issue it cost the health care billions of dollar each year to fix the mistakes that were made.