Decision-making processes are the foundation for the nexus of legal, ethical, and social issues related to medical error reporting. The need to improve patient safety can be recognized as a public health issue and society should take active measures to decrease the number of deaths caused by medical errors (Guillod, 2013). This public health issue can only be addressed by including the ethical and moral dilemma in decision-making processes. There are emerging legal frameworks in several countries that have legislation regarding medical error reporting. However, legislation on its own is insufficient because of the moral and professional requirements for disclosing errors are perceived as substandard and unsafe by healthcare professionals (Ahern …show more content…
Society recognizes that laws have become a primary tool to pressure and pursue personal and professional behaviors. However, sometimes laws are criticized for not accomplishing their intended goal, for example, the law did not alter personal behavior to conform to societal norms. In general, laws have mandated, promoted, deterred some human behaviors and provide empirical evidence that laws to work in regulating such behavior (Watson & O'Connor, 2015). Society, therefore, should seek to enact laws and regulations to decrease the death toll from medical errors by enhancing the system for medical error reporting to promote patient safety. In addition to laws the former culture of professionalism (medical professionals do not make mistakes) should be transformed to a culture of safety, free from fear and defensiveness, and promoting an attitude of openness and willingness to learn and make changes (Anderson, 2018). This process will require society at large to change how we educate and train healthcare professionals to improve communication and sensitivity to medical error …show more content…
civil law code. Civil liability of HCO and healthcare professionals is associated and based on individual fault and negligence. Civil liability allows for the victim to be compensated and to prevent future occurrences, however, this creates a culture of secrecy (Cleary & Duke, 2017). Traditional legal advice to healthcare professionals has been to neither disclose errors nor to apologize for errors that result in patient injuries in fear of being held legally liable. According to Watson & O'Connor (2015), for instance, in countries, including the U.S., it is seen as a duty to disclose medical errors as part of a general legal norms contract. An example is in Switzerland, the healthcare-patient relationship is regulated by the contract of agency. The contract of agency includes disclosure and apology laws known as disclosure-with-offer mandates medical errors that occur in specific conditions must be reported and compensation must be made with no other repercussion to the healthcare institution or individual unless evidence of gross negligence is presented. The disclosure-with-offer program that Swiss law has enacted has proved a systemic process for reporting medical errors, offers compensation to the patient or family and decreases healthcare costs. The disclosure-with-offer program has also eliminated undesirable legal consequences for
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).
Kohn, L. et al. 2000. To err is human: building a safer health system. Washington D.C. National Academies Press.
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 error occurs more than most people realize and when a doctor is found negligent the patient has the right to sue for compensation of their losses. Debates and issues arise when malpractice lawsuits are claimed. If a patient is filing for a medical malpractice case, the l...
He said, “Studies of specific types of error, too, have found that repeat offenders are not the problem. The fact is that virtually everyone who cares for hospital patients will make serious mistakes, and even commit acts of negligence, every year. For this reason, doctors are seldom outraged when the press reports yet another medical horror story. They usually have a different reaction: This could be me. The important question isn’t how to keep bad physicians from harming patients; it’s how to keep good physicians from harming patients” (658). Like Gawande asked—how do you keep good physicians from harming patients? Even the best of doctors and surgeons manage to make mistakes that led to being sued or even worst—they get to experience the death of their
Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, which costs billions of dollars to the economy and increases our health care costs. How can health care managers decrease medical errors to improve costs of health care and costs to the economy? One approach is to have stricter health care polices, as it pertains to providing quality of care to patients no matter if the patient has private insurances, government insurance, self-pay, etc. the quality provided to patients should be the same across the board no matter the income class of patients, high quality of care should be our priority. The second approach would be to have stricter accountability for those that work in the health care field and make them responsible for their health care facilities and have penalties that are sanctioned for preventable medical errors.
Kohn, L., Corrigan, J., & Donaldson, M. (1999). To err is human: building a safer health system. Committee on Quality of Health Care in America Institute of Medicine National Academy Press Washington, D.C.
Today, medical error has become a major and important challenge to health care systems across the globe. This is because medical errors often lead to harm that may also be non-repairable (Valiani et al. 540; Denham “Chasing Zero”). In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published a report that indicated that medical error in hospitals accounts for between 48,000 and 98,000 deaths annually (Swift et al. 78; Barger et al. 2441). As such, reducing the occurrence of medical errors has become an international concern. Poorolajal defines a medical error as “an act of omission or commission in planning or execution that contributes or could contribute to an unintended result.” (Poorolajal, et al. para 5 -10). In this case, it’s very important to acknowledge
There is nothing traumatizing in the world has adding pain to where it already exists. This is the hell situation which every medical error victim is exposed. As the statistics are currently showing, the fatalities are increasing day by day. The trend seems to be hiding on the old ideology of “man is to error”. However this is not being tolerated any more and the American medical facilities are being held 100% accountable for the mistakes they make in their service delivery. Professional diligence is not a matter of negotiation in this generation and probably future generations. If a medical facility cannot treat people diligently, then the only better option remaining for that facility is to be made to account for the losses they have caused on affected patients and be closed down immediately.
Many hospitals have systems of checks and balances to avoid errors, but what happens when the systems do not work? Today in the United States, medical errors are the fifth-leading cause of death. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine released a study, “To Err is Human”, revealing an estimated 98,000 deaths annually from medical errors. While this figure is assumed to be lower than the actual, each death comes with an inherent cost to the health care system. In today’s terms this figure is underestimated, however the accompanied cost is estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion annually. According to Grober and Bohnen (2005), “Medical error can be defined as, “an act of omission or commission in planning or execution that contributes
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
Today, the medical industry has been transformed. Doctors must live by a different code of ethics other than their oath. Legal fear has put the doctor-patient relationship in jeopardy. Today, physicians view patients as potential malpractice litigants. Therefore, doctors order unnecessary costly tests or avoid treating patients to insure safety from lawsuits. In Chicago, emergency room personnel refused to care for a boy who was shot, and had collapsed thirty feet outside the hospital door, because their legal duties were only to those inside. Because of the fear of lawsuits, the young boy was denied the opportunity to live. Not only are doctor-patient relationships affected, teachers and students are learning under precise laws.
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).
Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency coordination task force with the help of government agencies. These government agencies are responsible for making health pol-icies regarding patient safety to which every HCO must follow (Schulman & Kim, 2000).
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...