Patient Safety and Medical error Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Patient Safety and Medical error - Essay Example Safety health care and medical errors has emerged as a powerful healthcare discipline built on the basis of immature scientific framework that is fast developing. An increased access to information regarding the number of cases of medical errors has helped improve this discipline (Hurwitz & Sheikh, 2009). Such improvements include adopting innovative technologies, error reporting systems enhancement, new economic incentives development and application of knowledge gained from business and industry. The impacts and magnitude of medical errors was unappreciated until in the 1990s when there were several reported incidences in the United States of America. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences published a report ‘Building a Safe Health System’ in 1999 in recognition of the trend of human error in heath care systems. In the report, the IOM urged for a broad national effort including the establishment of a patient safety center, safety programs development in health care institutions, expansion of reporting of adverse effects and urged healthcare purchasers, regulators and professional societies to pay attention to this fact. Within two weeks of the publishing of the report, the president of the United States of America ordered a study to be carried out to establish the feasibility of the implementation of the report’s recommendations. Health Grades, in July 2004, released a study namely ‘Patient safety in American Hospitalsâ €™ that showed that there were over 1,000,000 adverse impacts associated with healthcare systems during 2000-2002 which resulted in more than 190,000 deaths per year in US healthcare institutions (Wilson, Runciman, Gibberd, Harrison, Newby & Hamilton, 1995). This experience is much similar to other countries around the world. According to a ten year study in Australia, there were over 17,000 deaths annually that resulted from medical errors, for instance medical dosing error. The Canadian adverse effects