Article Summary

Article Title: To err is human: Building a safer health system

            The article highlights the findings of the Institute of Medicine committee that laid out a strategy of reducing the preventable medical errors. The revelation that informed the committee was that health care in the United States is not as safe as it ought to be. There are many people who die in the hospitals every year due to preventable medical errors. The loss of lives due to medical errors is a significant problem due to the revelation that it exceeds the attributable deaths to the feared threats like motor-vehicle wrecks, breast cancer, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The committee proposed recommendations that strike a balance between the regulatory market-based initiatives as well as the roles of professionals and organizations.

            As the author states, many of the medical errors do not arise from individual carelessness or the actions of particular groups. Instead, the errors are a result of faulty systems, processes, and conditions that cause failure and make it difficult for people to prevent them. When errors arise, it is unnecessary to blame other individuals since it does not make the system safer in future.

Several strategies were recommended by the committee to achieve improved safety record.

            First is establishing a national strategy to create leadership, research, tools, and protocols that enhance knowledge base on safety. The Congress should establish a center for patient safety that sets national safety goals and assesses its progress.

            Secondly is to identify and learn from errors and develop a national mandatory reporting system. The state governments will utilize the reporting system to collect standardized information on the adverse medical occurrences leading to death or harm. The reporting systems should be backed by the law to protect the confidentiality of the information collected.

            Thirdly is to raise performance standards and expectations for improving safety through oversight organizations, professional bodies, and healthcare organizations. The development and adoption of standards ensure that the expectations of safety for both providers and consumers are achieved. The

            The fourth recommendation is to implement safety systems in health care organizations for the safe delivery of the practices. The health care organizations ought to develop a culture of safety for the workforce and the employees for them to be focused on improving it. The organizations should implement the known safety principles as the starting point for enhancing their safety levels. The systems for monitoring patient safety are necessary to evaluate the progress of the initiatives.

            The author states that the response from the IOM report was positive and fast and well adopted by the government and the private sectors. The Congress started hearings on patient safety that led to the appropriation of funds to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to support the efforts. There has been remarkable progress by AHRQ in developing and implementing the findings into action. The agency also documented guidelines on the practical aspects to individual consumers in improving the quality of health care services received. Other major initiatives were started by the private sector and other professional bodies dealing with health care issues to improve patient safety.

            As the author suggests, there is no magic formula in addressing the problem of medical errors. However, most of the errors are preventable if appropriate measures are put in place to address the issue. The research article has relevant information to the health care sector and provides comprehensive information on how to reduce medical errors in care delivery. Though the article was not experimental research-based, it provides helpful findings to the relevant bodies.

Reference

Kohn L.T., Corrigan J.M. & Donaldson M.S. (1999 To err is human: Building a safer health          system. Committee on quality of health care in America, Institute of Medicine, 

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in nursing essay help USA if you need a similar paper you can place your order from custom college papers.