Paper Topic:

Medical errors

Medical Errors

When a patient enters a medical facility to be treated , that person places his or her life on the hands on the clinician providing treatment . It is natural to trust one 's health and concerns to medical practitioners because it is their responsibility to provide care treatment , and support to their patients

However , it seems that this is not the case for some health care providers . In the year 2001 , an approximated 9 out of 10 medical error trials involved a complainant claiming that the death or permanent injury

was due to the health care provider 's malpractice (Bureau of Justice Statistics , 2004 . These medical malpractices range from misdiagnosing to wrong administration of treatment to wrong body part being operated on

Recently , Dennis Quaid , an actor , and his wife sued a blood-thinner manufacturing company because an error in the part of the company resulted in an overdose to the couple 's newly born twins (Los Angeles Times , 2007 . Another patient , Evelyn McKnight , diagnosed with breast cancer , went to receive chemotherapy from some facility but in the process acquired hepatitis C due to the clinic 's practice of reusing syringes (USA Today , 2008

There is also a story about a certain child who was born asphyxiated from being delivered too late , which made him cortically blind and quadriplegic cerebral palsy (Sun-Sentinel , 2008 . It is a sad situation because the whole hospital staff do not want to cooperate and provide details of who must take responsibility . In addition , it is a very scary situation because it demonstrates that health care providers are more willing to hide the truth and side by their colleagues rather than doing what is right , which is to give justice to the victims of medical malpractice

In Orange County , investigations are being done at St . Joseph Hospital because it is said that a patient underwent an operation on the wrong knee (Los Angeles Times , 2008 . However hospital authorities indicate that they are doing their best for these things not to happen , it seems that their efforts ' are not enough to put an end to this situation Serious consequences are bound to happen not only to wrong operation sites but also to every medical error that can be made no matter how simple or grave the error is

Admittedly , medical errors are not only made by physicians or doctors Other causes of errors include difficulties in medical care , general system problems , patient mistakes , pharmacist mistakes , laboratory mistakes , pharmaceutical company mistakes , hospital mistakes , and surgical mistakes (Wrong Diagnosis . Errors should not always be blamed on health care providers but they should willingly take responsibility for those errors that they obviously make

Root cause analysis is defined as the process to identify the causal factors that underlie what is referred to as a sentinel event , which is an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious injury (McLean 2006 ,

.112 . This focuses on systems and process instead of the performances of individuals to acquire more knowledge and understanding of the...

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