Never Events: Medical Errors In Research

The “Never Events” is in reference to medical errors that should never occur. Never Events are defined as medical and surgical errors of wrong site surgery, delay in treatment, medication error, wrong procedure performed on patient, suicide, and death by patient using contaminated drugs. The list was altered since then, recently in 2011 and now contains of 29 events gathered in six categories: surgical, product or device, patient protection, care management, environmental, radiologic, and criminal, stated by, (Patient Safety Network Agency for Health care Research and Quality, 2014). The ramifications of such a policy for pros are the useful awareness being reached out to hospitals, and other health facilities to be mindful of errors. Another

(pro) for this policy is for the government to act on these preventable and devastating errors to fund for more staff, technology, or even more doctors to focus on patients. A policy such as the “Never Events” is not designed to degrade or remind doctors and hospitals how many careless mistakes they do. The purpose is to act on these medical and surgical errors to prevent more from happening. In addition, to all hospitals, doctors, and staff to emphasis to focus more, attention to-detail, and using rational thinking when making decisions for patients is another pro for this policy. The (cons) for this policy is the amount of pressure put on hospitals and doctors and other health care organizations may not pay for medical mistakes. More hospitals and health care organizations might not put out the money to compensate for devastating errors. Not every state may agree to carry out this policy for the fact of medical errors happen and when hospitals can give patients a letter of apology to waive the cost of care.