Medical errors, such as misdiagnosis, administering the wrong drug, and surgical errors, can have serious consequences for patients and business. To reduce errors, doctors can use a second opinion, color coding systems, and medical error reporting systems.
A medical error is an error made in the process of diagnosing or treating a disease. Medical errors can take a wide variety of forms, from administering the wrong drug to accidentally delivering a diagnosis to the wrong patient. Doctors, hospitals and other representatives of the medical profession work very hard to reduce the incidence of medical errors, because they are bad for business and bad for patients.
A common form of medical error is misdiagnosis, where a patient is misdiagnosed or a diagnosis is missed altogether. This type of medical error is especially common in situations where patients have unusual illnesses or unexpected manifestations of ordinary illnesses. Diagnostic errors can be reduced by using a second opinion to confirm a diagnosis and by encouraging doctors to consult with each other to resolve difficult cases.
Another type of medical error is the administration of the wrong drug or the administration of a drug that can be harmful to a patient. In a hospital, for example, a nurse might accidentally put the wrong medication into an IV drip because the medication supply isn’t clearly labeled or the nurse is in a hurry. A doctor can also prescribe the wrong drug, and if the prescription is not questioned, the patient will be given a drug that she should not have been given. It’s also not uncommon for doctors to prescribe medications that conflict with a patient’s existing medications or condition, which is why pharmacists should carefully review every prescription they receive.
Surgery is also infamous for its medical errors, although errors in surgery are actually quite rare. However, they tend to be monumental when they occur. Cutting off the wrong limb or leaving surgical instruments in the body are two forms of surgical errors. To reduce such errors, surgeons routinely mark their patients before surgery with lines indicating where to cut and what procedure is being performed, and medical instruments are carefully monitored to ensure nothing is left in the patient.
There are several ways to reduce medical error. One technique is to use a standardized color coding system for drugs, surgical instruments, and other medical equipment. When a doctor grabs an intubation tube with an orange ring, for example, he’ll know exactly what size it is without needing to check the label. Color coding is used to code anesthesia medications and to code cabinets in hospital drawers so that in an emergency, people can open a specific color drawer to access tools they might need.
Many hospitals have medical error reporting systems in place that encourage physicians to report into a no-fault system. This allows people to report their mistakes and report other members of the hospital without fear of retribution, bringing mistakes into the open so they can be discussed. Medical error discussions typically include a conversation about what caused the error and how it can be avoided in the future.
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