Patient Safety Essay

Patient care involves multiple health professionals with varying educational level and occupational training. During a hospital visit, a patient may interact with many different health professionals, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc. Therefore, a common understanding and collaboration across the healthcare team must be established. In addition, as nurses and physicians are key members of the healthcare team, effective communication between the 2 professions is essential. Poor communication and collaboration, and ineffective teamwork can lead to unwanted patient outcomes - adverse events, medical errors, compromises in patient safety, and poor quality care (O'Daniel & Rosenstein, 2008).

Over several decades, studies have shown a considerable number of patients who suffer medical error related injuries while in the hospital. This indicates that medical error is a serious problem. A report issued in 1999 by the US Institute of Medicine, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, revealed that at least 44,000 people die in US hospitals each year as a result of medical errors (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). In 2012, it is estimated that there are almost 43 million patient safety incidences in the world annually (Jha et al., 2013). In addition, a recent study revealed that, in USA alone, more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical errors. This number surpasses the CDC's third leading cause of death, respiratory disease

Furthermore, considering the fact that a substantial part of adverse events in hospitals are preventable (de Vries, Ramrattan, Smorenburg, Gouma, & Boermeester, 2008), medical error is a potential research area. Although human errors can't be eliminated, strategies to reduce adverse events caused by human errors should be developed and put to use. To achieve this outcome, factors contributing to errors must be thoroughly