Medical Error Prevention: Quiz!

Medical errors are mistakes or failure of a planned action in health care delivery that could have been avoided.

Medical errors can occur in any health care delivery setting such as hospitals, clinics, surgery centers, physician’s offices, nursing homes, pharmacies, or at home.

Many undesirable results in health care delivery are not due to medical errors.

Many unfavorable events that are the result of medical care are not errors.

An adverse event is generally defined as an injury that was caused by medical management and that resulted in measurable impairment or disability.

Many side effects of medications are not medical errors.

A near miss is defined as an event or situation that could have resulted in an injury, accident, or illness, but for some reason did not, either by chance or through well-timed intervention.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) system is a part of an overall process for identifying prevention strategies by concentrating on changes that are necessary to be made to health care delivery systems.

An error is defined as the "failure of a planned action to be completed as intended or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim.

Medication errors include; prescription of the wrong medication or dosage, unclear prescription writing by the physician, dispensing the wrong medication or dosage by the pharmacist.

Surgical errors occur; prior to, during, or after a surgical procedure.

Preoperative Surgical errors may include; inappropriate patient’s preparation and or pre-medication, wheeling the wrong patient to the operating room.

Surgical Operative errors include; faulty performance of a procedure, retention of a foreign object, or patient catching fire during surgery while being cauterized.

Postoperative surgical errors include inappropriate or inadequate nursing care during recovery time, inadequate post-operative care, and delayed response to bleeding.

Diagnostic Errors include; inaccuracy in performing a diagnostic test, inaccurate interpretation of a test result, and lack of follow up on the test.

System Failure includes; medication errors, equipment failure to work or work properly, and equipment breaking during a procedure.

To reduce medication errors the following should be implemented; to keep expensive handheld computers at the bedside, physicians requesting their patients to get their medication bottles into the physician’s office.

To reduce surgical errors the following should be implemented; paying much attention to the patient’s specific need and health condition, proper identification of the patient, his or her surgeon, and the specific procedure.

To reduce diagnostic errors the following should be implemented; ensuring the adequacy of staff training in performing the diagnostic procedure.

To reduce system failure errors the following are recommended; making sure that someone such as the primary care physician is in charge of the patient's total care, overseeing his or her healthcare as a whole process.