Effect Of Medical Mistakes Health And Social Care Essay

Our life is full with mistakes…these mistakes may be unnoticeable and not important but others may be fatal and have big impact on our life. Unfortunately, everyone is human, and mistakes are part of humanity. These mistakes are so widespread and belong to many categories. We can consider the most important category is the one concerned with medical mistakes. Medical mistakes can arise from the health practitioners, specialist, hospital administration, nursing staff, pharmacists, pathology laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and many other places. The patient can also make various mistakes. All of these factors mean that rates of medical mistakes are sadly common. Medical mistakes are of many types such as misdiagnosis, medication errors, surgery errors, nosocomial infections (infections caught in a hospital), laboratory test errors, and administrative errors, and even more and more. These many types need the appropriate way of treatment or even preventing these mistakes. This is primary the responsibility of medical community. This is not taken lightly, nor is it dismissed. There are numerous conferences, technologies, and proposals that aim to reduce the rate of errors in all aspects of medical care. Unfortunately, it is a difficult problem, and error rates are only slowly decreasing. It is a very significant problem, it has many causes , many types, and should be solved by many ways.

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We always ask why this mistake happened but sometimes we really don’t find the reason. In many cases, the issue is not one of negligence by a doctor or other medical practitioner, but rather a systemic issue. On the other hand, there are many cases of malpractice brought against medical practitioners, alleging various levels of failings. In any case, let us attempt to categorize some of the possible causes of medical mistakes or errors. such as:

Fundamental difficulties in medical care: Providing health care is a difficult undertaking and it is inevitable for some level of mistakes to occur.

General medical industry system problems: The medical industry overall contributes to higher than necessary rates of medical mistakes. Although some errors are unavoidable, the industry could do much better.

Individual doctor mistakes: Your doctor can obviously make a mistake in various ways

Patient mistakes: The patient can contribute to an error occurring in their health care. Patients should view achieving good medical care as something over which they have partial control.

Pharmacist mistakes: The dispensing of medications at the pharmacy can be the source of various mistakes.

Pathology laboratory mistakes: The various laboratory tests used for diagnosis (and sometimes treatment planning) can have several types of errors:

Pharmaceutical industry mistakes: The drug industry has contributed to certain medical mistakes such as:

Hospital mistakes: The hospital is a large institution that can make numerous types of mistakes.

Surgical mistakes: Any type of surgical procedure has various risks and there are certain errors that can occur

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Medical mistakes can be many types and under many titles. Studies of error types: An Institute of Medical report 1 attempts to quantify the types of medical errors that occur in healthcare settings. One cited study lists causes of error as follows:

technical errors (44%),

misdiagnosis (17%),

failure to prevent injury (12%),

medication errors (10%).

About 70% of all errors were believed to be preventable. The remainder were presumably non-preventable errors such as a patient reacting to a drug who had no previous history of an allergy to the drug.

Diagnosis mistakes: there are various mistakes that can cause a misdiagnosis of a condition. Misdiagnosis can be one of the most costly of medical errors, leading to delayed, omitted, or inappropriate medical treatments.

Treatment mistakes: There are numerous ways that an error can occur in medical treatment.

Prevention mistakes: The failure to prevent a condition is another type of medical failing. In certain cases, it is clear that preventive actions should be taken and failure to do so is a medical mistake.

Surgery mistakes: Surgical procedures are often complex and subject to various errors. Administration of surgery can also lead to errors. In some cases, there are known complications or risks of surgery than are often unavoidable.

Hospital mistakes: A hospital can make errors in any of its varied activities. There are many staff who can make human mistakes and overall system problems can also lead to errors.

Medication mistakes: Errors in medication are a major source of medical mistakes medication errors can occur in hospitals or pharmacies, and the error may be made by any of the staff involved with choosing or dispensing medication.

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Pharmacist errors: The dispensing of drugs by the pharmacy is a complex and busy activity. Various errors can occur at the pharmacist

Pathology lab errors: Diagnostic testing done by a pathology laboratory can be subject

to various errors. Some are administrative or human mistakes; other “mistakes” are inherent to the limitations of the type of test.

Equipment failure errors: Physical failures with medical equipment can occur.

Unnecessary medical treatment: Excessive medical care can be a form of “mistake” for medical professionals and institutions. This can occur with good intentions (to ensure correctness) or for cynical reasons (to increase income).

Causes and types can show us the huge significance of medical mistakes. and show also how much it is important to prevent these mistakes.

Preventing surgery mistakes: Although not all surgical risks can be avoided, there are certain ways to reduce the risk of an error

Non-preventable medical mistakes: Not all medical errors are preventable. The entire medical industry has been trying to prevent and minimize them for years, without enough success. As a patient, you only have limited control over your health care. For some situations, such as surgery, you are literally in someone else’s hands.

We can conclude the the patient may well be the one who can do the most to prevent many types of medical mistakes. As a patient, you have the time (and motivation) to double-check your diagnosis and medications, whereas the hurried medical staffs do not have hours to spend on your case. Education can allow you to double-check your diagnosis, examine all possible treatments, and check your medications for possible adverse events, and so on. Although you can’t always prevent the slip of the scalpel in surgery or fully avoid a hospital-caused infection, you can at least be informed about the risks, and research the past record of your doctor and your hospital.

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The report apparently shows there are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications – these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the # 3 killer. Iatrogenic is a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a physician, whether it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions used to treat the illness.

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References

www.wrongdiagnosis.com

www.bmj.com

www.oddee.com

www.news.health.com

General and medical informations.

Syllabes

Abstract 2

Introduction 3

Causes of medical mistakes 4

Types of medical mistakes 5__6

Prevention + conclusion 7

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