Preventable Medical Errors In Health Care

Health care in the United States is not as safe as it should and could be. Preventable medical errors result in human lives, total costs, patient loss of trust, and diminished satisfaction of patients and health professionals. Patients experienced long hospital stay or disability, lost worker productivity, reduced school attendance, and lower levels of population health status.
Diagnostic error includes error or delay in diagnosis, failure to employ indicated tests, use of outmoded tests or therapy, and failure to act on results of monitoring or testing. Treatment error includes error in the performance of an operation, procedure or test, error in administering the treatment, error in the dose or method of using a drug, avoidable delay in treatment or in responding to an abnormal test, and inappropriate care. Preventive error includes failure to provide prophylactic treatment, and inadequate monitoring or follow-up of treatment. Other errors include failure of communication, equipment failure, and other system failure.
The strategy for improvement includes first, to establish a national focus to create leadership, research, tools, and protocols to enhance the knowledge base about safety.
Second, identify and learn from errors by developing a nationwide public mandatory reporting system and by encouraging health care organizations and practitioners to develop and participate in voluntary reporting systems. Third, raise performance standards and expectations for improvements in safety through the actions of oversight organizations, professional groups, and group purchasers of health care. Last, implement safety systems in health care organizations to ensure safe practices at the delivery
level.