Medical Errors, Essay Example

The literature that has been published on the topic of medical errors in health care present evidence indicating that there is a low level of awareness concerning this problem. Typically, medical errors are handled internally and it often becomes the responsibility of health care professionals to determine how these will be resolved and prevented. While national and local laws that are put in place to guide medical practice provide information that helps health care institutions understand the level of quality that is required, there is little support from these agencies in terms of actual implementation. As a consequence, medical errors are seen to be the responsibility of individual hospitals and employees and they are therefore silenced in the public domain.

There are many medical errors because practice standards have not evolved in a manner that is conducive to prevention. Many modern hospitals are dealing with budgetary crises that forces the administration to focus on determining how to work with limited resources rather than heightening safety standards. Furthermore, even when quality improvement initiatives are put in place, it is often challenging to establish suitable training programs that will ensure full compliance from staff due to a lack of time and resources available. Health care systems can report, monitor, and prevent medical errors from happening more substantially if health records are recorded on electronic health record systems and regularly accessed by each employee working with the same patient. This will allow them to gain a greater understanding of the initial interview and which medications have been prescribed, along with a wealth of other related information. Furthermore, this provides employees with the potential to communicate with one another more significantly, which makes a big difference to prevent medical errors that occur as a consequence of shift changes. Ultimately, switching records to a digital means will allow protocol to be checked which will help prevent against commonly made mistakes.