Community Chat

[Irshgrl31201]

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@Moonchilde wrote:

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@hyacinth003 wrote:

As an RN who has worked in hospitals for many years, I have a few thoughts.

One cause of some errors (medication) can be the constant interruptions you get.  Don't walk up to a nurse when she is preparing medication.  You really need the least distractions possible when getting medication ready.

I get really annoyed hearing nurses do this, nurses do that, blah, blah, blah.  "I've had 10 wrong medications given to me. BLAH."  I don't believe it.  I have NO PROBLEM with a patient asking me what a pill is or any questions about their medication.  NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.  What it is, if it looks different, if it is new, if a dose is different, what it is for, etc.  It is your right to ask. I tell patients I appreciate their questions!  I welcome questions if it could catch an error.  It has never happened to me, but it could.  

Sick people in the hospital have infections.  There is no way to avoid it.  Many hospitals are going to single patient in a room, and that should help. 

Doctors, nurses, etc. are HUMAN BEINGS and subject to errors.  Just like ANY OTHER job.  I think I take extraordinary care NOT to make a mistake.  To the point of worrying a LOT that it might happen.  How many jobs does that happen in - NOT MANY.  So I personally get tired of just complaining. 

As a nurse, you SELDOM have enough staff NOT to be pressured all the time.  That is another cause of mistakes.  Too many patients - not enough nurses.  Tell THAT in patient surveys!

Those are a few of my thoughts on the inside of the issue!

Hyacinth

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Very well stated.

Many fail-safes are in place to cut down/eliminate errors. Both hospitals administratively, and staff care about their statistics. Not only do they not want to lose patients, or 'injure' them, the hospital's govt reimbursement is dependent upon their error statistics. Hospitals can be and often are shut down, period, for alarming statistics and sub-par results of the surveys of processional governing bodies (JCAHO).

Do mistakes happen? Do deaths or serious injury occur? Yes. But planes crash due to pilot error and so do Metro trains. Then there is the Costa Concordia. The military and law inforcement kill innocent people sometimes. Bombs get dropped in the wrong place for the right reasons. What do they all have in common? The responsible parties were all human beings.

You can't hold one classification of human being (worker in health care, including doctors) more responsible for human life than anyone else on the planet. Or rather, you CAN, but it's not logical to do so.

Pilots are trained not to crash; they crash. Soldiers are trained not to miss their targets; they miss. Police rely on their five senses; sometimes those will fail them. Healthcare workers are trained to save lives; sometimes they don't. ALL of the above people are fully aware they can "never" make mistakes - but they do, because they're human.

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I don't think anyone here is looking at it that way. I know I am certainly not but I definitely do believe they are being underreported. I think drs are completely overworked and I have read several articles stating that is the number one reason for medical errors caused by a dr. I do wish the AMA would lower the number hours they are allowed to work by law like truckers and airline pilots. I think the number of hours in a row they are allowed to work and the hours a week they are allowed to work is way too high. 

I completely understand they are human and mistakes will be made that harm or kill people and that is unavoidable. I just want to make sure the way they record and account for those deaths is accurate too.

[Irshgrl31201]

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@athenian wrote:

I think the article was referring to all deaths, not just in hospitals, but nursing homes and deaths at home.  That makes more sense to me.  

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It said the deaths at home and in nursing homes were not counted in those.

[Mrsq2022]

I wonder where this study classifies drug overdose from prescription drugs.  Accident, suicide or "Medical error". I'd like to see all of the causes of death that they pooled into medical error.  Things like inducing labor (with a resulting fatality) could fall into the category of medical mistake, as could any planned and unnecessary c-section.  Im with @hckynut and remain skeptical.  

I woule also be interested in knowing how many of these deaths caused by "medical error" involved healthy individuls versus medically fragile and mortally ill patients.  Healthy patient goes to the hospital after having been hit by a car.  At night, blood clot kills patient.  Is this really a medical error?  

Things happen when you are hurt, ill or otherwise unhealthy and to blame any resulting fatality on the medical providers is a big mistake in my opinion.  

[Irshgrl31201]

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@Mrsq2022 wrote:

I wonder where this study classifies drug overdose from prescription drugs.  Accident, suicide or "Medical error". I'd like to see all of the causes of death that they pooled into medical error.  Things like inducing labor (with a resulting fatality) could fall into the category of medical mistake, as could any planned and unnecessary c-section.  Im with @hckynut and remain skeptical.  

I woule also be interested in knowing how many of these deaths caused by "medical error" involved healthy individuls versus medically fragile and mortally ill patients.  Healthy patient goes to the hospital after having been hit by a car.  At night, blood clot kills patient.  Is this really a medical error?  

Things happen when you are hurt, ill or otherwise unhealthy and to blame any resulting fatality on the medical providers is a big mistake in my opinion.  

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This should help answer some of your questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_error

A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care, whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosisor treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, infection, or other ailment.

[Moonchilde]

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@Irshgrl31201 wrote:

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@Moonchilde wrote:

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@hyacinth003 wrote:

As an RN who has worked in hospitals for many years, I have a few thoughts.

One cause of some errors (medication) can be the constant interruptions you get.  Don't walk up to a nurse when she is preparing medication.  You really need the least distractions possible when getting medication ready.

I get really annoyed hearing nurses do this, nurses do that, blah, blah, blah.  "I've had 10 wrong medications given to me. BLAH."  I don't believe it.  I have NO PROBLEM with a patient asking me what a pill is or any questions about their medication.  NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.  What it is, if it looks different, if it is new, if a dose is different, what it is for, etc.  It is your right to ask. I tell patients I appreciate their questions!  I welcome questions if it could catch an error.  It has never happened to me, but it could.  

Sick people in the hospital have infections.  There is no way to avoid it.  Many hospitals are going to single patient in a room, and that should help. 

Doctors, nurses, etc. are HUMAN BEINGS and subject to errors.  Just like ANY OTHER job.  I think I take extraordinary care NOT to make a mistake.  To the point of worrying a LOT that it might happen.  How many jobs does that happen in - NOT MANY.  So I personally get tired of just complaining. 

As a nurse, you SELDOM have enough staff NOT to be pressured all the time.  That is another cause of mistakes.  Too many patients - not enough nurses.  Tell THAT in patient surveys!

Those are a few of my thoughts on the inside of the issue!

Hyacinth

---

Very well stated.

Many fail-safes are in place to cut down/eliminate errors. Both hospitals administratively, and staff care about their statistics. Not only do they not want to lose patients, or 'injure' them, the hospital's govt reimbursement is dependent upon their error statistics. Hospitals can be and often are shut down, period, for alarming statistics and sub-par results of the surveys of processional governing bodies (JCAHO).

Do mistakes happen? Do deaths or serious injury occur? Yes. But planes crash due to pilot error and so do Metro trains. Then there is the Costa Concordia. The military and law inforcement kill innocent people sometimes. Bombs get dropped in the wrong place for the right reasons. What do they all have in common? The responsible parties were all human beings.

You can't hold one classification of human being (worker in health care, including doctors) more responsible for human life than anyone else on the planet. Or rather, you CAN, but it's not logical to do so.

Pilots are trained not to crash; they crash. Soldiers are trained not to miss their targets; they miss. Police rely on their five senses; sometimes those will fail them. Healthcare workers are trained to save lives; sometimes they don't. ALL of the above people are fully aware they can "never" make mistakes - but they do, because they're human.

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I don't think anyone here is looking at it that way. I know I am certainly not but I definitely do believe they are being underreported. I think drs are completely overworked and I have read several articles stating that is the number one reason for medical errors caused by a dr. I do wish the AMA would lower the number hours they are allowed to work by law like truckers and airline pilots. I think the number of hours in a row they are allowed to work and the hours a week they are allowed to work is way too high. 

I completely understand they are human and mistakes will be made that harm or kill people and that is unavoidable. I just want to make sure the way they record and account for those deaths is accurate too.

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The situations you refer to occur in teaching hospitals with Interns and Residents - ONLY. It's a relatively small percentage of hospitalizations. The majority of the population are hospitalized at non-teaching hospitals and attended to by physicians who work 10-12 hrs per day, maybe a bit more some days, and medical personnel who work 12 hr shifts, on 3 days and off 4. Sleep is not an issue with any of these people unless they as individuals choose to burn the candle at both ends and/or have two jobs - and that's on *them.* There are laws and regulations in place, as well as labor unions, to do the best to insure that understaffing isn't rampant and double shifts don't happen routinely, but it still happens.  THAT is what needs to be watched.

[hckynut]

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@Noel7 wrote:

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@hckynut wrote:

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thank u my friend

johnhn

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@hckynut

John, how are you?  Are you out of the hospital?  I do so hope you are healing and feeling better

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out but anemic. more tests ahead. wife away pet sitting since i came hom

thank u my friend

john

[Mrsq2022]

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@Irshgrl31201 wrote:

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@Mrsq2022 wrote:

I wonder where this study classifies drug overdose from prescription drugs.  Accident, suicide or "Medical error". I'd like to see all of the causes of death that they pooled into medical error.  Things like inducing labor (with a resulting fatality) could fall into the category of medical mistake, as could any planned and unnecessary c-section.  Im with @hckynut and remain skeptical.  

I woule also be interested in knowing how many of these deaths caused by "medical error" involved healthy individuls versus medically fragile and mortally ill patients.  Healthy patient goes to the hospital after having been hit by a car.  At night, blood clot kills patient.  Is this really a medical error?  

Things happen when you are hurt, ill or otherwise unhealthy and to blame any resulting fatality on the medical providers is a big mistake in my opinion.  

---

This should help answer some of your questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_error

A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care, whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosisor treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, infection, or other ailment.

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This is helpful.  Even adverse effects caused by the patient themselves (ie patient falling) are included in these figures.  I agree that an "inaccurate" diagnosis or treatment should be considered medical error, but "incomplete" certainly encompasses a lot more than most of us would consider an "error". 

[RedTop]

I do not believe the overall situation is as dramatic as reported, and specific facilities should be identified before creating such hype.  

When I switched departments in the hospital and worked in nursing, one of my main responsibilities was gathering PI data (performance improvement), recording the statistics, and graphing this important information for committee review.   My boss presented this information to the hospital committee, as well as to the Board of Directors.   I had firsthand knowledge of our medication errors, infection rates, etc., and those statistics never portrayed the hospital as an unsafe place for any patient to receive care.  

As per @151949's post, med errors were often caught by Pharmacists before it ever involved a patient, but errors also dropped substantially with the introduction of automated Pyxis machines for med dispensing, and nursing inservices on using patient identifiers before medicating.   Many physicians also have what used to be called standing orders for certain procedures.   These signed orders state the meds the doctor wants administered to their patient, along with other care instructions while the patient is in the hospital.   I read the standing order from my ortho surgeon prior to my knee replacement, so I knew exactly what to expect as far as my inpatient ortho care, and what meds my doctor prescribes for that procedure.   The morning of my procedure, in the presence of nursing and surgical staff, I personally took the marker and marked my knee as the correct surgical site, before I ever left my room.   

While I do not know the entire process for every facility, I have no qualms whatsoever about the safety of patient care in the hospital I retired from, and am not buying into the drama of this news report.   Patient safety is always a priority, and for over 10 years, I saw our hospital taking continuous steps to ensure a safe environment for all patients receiving services.    

[Mominohio]

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@Moonchilde wrote:

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@Mominohio wrote:

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@hckynut wrote:

not buying it

hnj

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Take it up with Fox News. They reported the study was done at John Hopkins.

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Fox News - our Nation's beacon of non-biased truth and total accuracy.

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As has been posted here by others, the story is available at numerous sources.