US Quality of Healthcare - Preventable Medical Errors
One of the problems that affects the United States healthcare landscape is the status of its quality. Preventable medical errors are a leading cause of death in the U.S., which is surprising given the amount of money that the U.S. funnels into healthcare.1 Medical errors also contribute to the growing cost of healthcare, further exacerbating the financial burden placed on health systems and patients alike. An aspect of medical errors that isn’t always considered is the way in which medical errors affect healthcare providers. Apparently, many providers experience anger, guilt, inadequacy, depression, or even suicidal ideology when they think or they know that they have committed an error.1 These feelings may be increased by the threat of legal action or malpractice suits against them. Although it is important to acknowledge and rectify medical errors that are made, it is also important to recognize that healthcare providers are humans and that human errors are made by everyone; doctors or other healthcare providers are not immune to human error.
As such, it is important to consider how mental wellness may impact the quality of healthcare. If providers make a mistake and they are no longer confident in their abilities, that may impact the care they provide to patients from that point forward. Losing faith in their abilities and in their knowledge could lead to additional negative patient outcomes. The structure of most healthcare systems is to have policies in place that force individuals to report errors, but in a way that places blame on providers and causes providers to hesitate reporting their mistakes.1 As James Reason’s “Swiss cheese” model explains, is known that medical errors are often the result of several sequential missteps or weakness found in barriers that have been set up to prevent errors.2 As such, if institutions would focus on implementing “no blame”-type policies that focus on fixing the sequence of steps that led to human error, this would create a better environment for providers. They might be more open to reporting errors if they knew they wouldn’t instantaneously lose their jobs. Open honesty could lead to faster resolution of medical errors, faster treatment of the patient, and less healthcare costs. This could also provide higher quality care for patients and foster open communication between providers and healthcare systems that can help to further identify the weaknesses in their system that allow for medical errors to slip through.
Resources:
Comments
Post a Comment