To Err Is Human, To Forgive Is Divine: Application In Nursing Practic

Medical errors show a serious community well-being problem and pose a danger to patient safety. Also, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the healthcare system (Tejal, 2017). Most patients are possibly susceptible, therefore medical errors are inflated from a human, economic, and societal vantage point (Tejal, 2017). There are various errors or wrongful practices being carried out in the hospital, and these are detrimental to the patient. Some of which includes: poor hand hygiene, carrying out wrong procedure on a patient, not practicing safe sterile procedures, medication errors and miscommunications (Tejal, 2017). Giving some thoughts concerning the video depicted in class, I came to understand that we are all human, and we make mistakes. This gives us the need to get used to the reality in order to better protect ourselves and patients from preventable harm.

In some healthcare systems today, the priority of all healthcare workers is to do the best we can for all patients. To err is human and building the fact to safe the patient from harm is the responsibility of every healthcare member (Pietra, Calligaris, & Brusaferro, 2015). Medication Errors, poor hand hygiene and misdiagnosing of a patient’s condition are the three big issues I will stress more about concerning medical practices error. These three errors are what alarms me the more because they are connected together in some way. In fact, when a doctor misdiagnosis a condition it may lead to prescription of the wrong medication and treatments resulting in some complication’s. The complications of these errors could be permanent in one’s life which can lead to death, unless they are being noticed initially (Holden & Karsh, 2014). There are some ways these errors could be detected, but this depends on how some procedures are being carried out in the healthcare system. However, providing standardized tools could be of help in the reduction of some medial errors in the healthcare system (Holden & Karsh, 2014). There was a scene in the video that gave a clue on how some medical practice errors could be detected. This is by the use of a swiss cheese process. This process helps all healthcare providers to be open and honest towards admitting mistakes that can place a patient at high risk of complications. Another way to prevent errors could be giving out rewards. Also, some treatment- associated errors are possibly more obvious than diagnostic and prevention errors because the related opposing events may occur rapidly and perceptibly (Holden & Karsh, 2014).

Safety has always been the first priority of nurses, to improve in the continuous need in focusing on the preventable lethal events (Pietra, Calligaris, & Brusaferro, 2015). I have witnessed some irreplaceable moments about some situations that gave patient’s relatives a hard time in life. Listening to the lady speaking about her husband’s health status and the story behind it, made me have more empathy towards them. However, I believe that when errors occur in the medical system it is not because of bad influences but by bad systems. An example could be giving medications from same container with different dosages and therapeutic names. Medical errors or mistakes can be prevented if the people involved in the care of a Patient, recognizes that all patient’s are at greater plights, and there should be error proof in the system. I also, go with the idea of all healthcare providers having a training annually to eradicate most errors that are not visible. If this training is taken seriously, the percentage of death rate will be mitigated in some way (Pietra, Calligaris, & Brusaferro, 2015).

In conclusion, medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care, which is very harmful to patient’s in the healthcare system. All theses practices could be due to inaccurate diagnosis, poor hand hygiene, which may give into transmission of some infectious diseases, and medication errors. If some preventive measures are taken, it will help in so many ways by preventing harm towards the patient.