Human errors in medical practice and the prevention

Abstract

Human errors are errors found in planning or implementation, and those found in medical practice are often major causes of mishaps.To name a few, wrong-site surgery, medication error, wrong treatment, and inadvertent equipment operation.Errors of this category can be prevented by learning from experiences and achievement worldwide.Preventive measures include those taken in human aspect and system aspect, reinforced education and training, process optimization, and hardware redesign.These measures can be aided by multiple safety steps in risky technical operations, in an effort to break the accident chain.For example, pre-operative surgical site marking, multi-department co-operated patient identification, bar-coded medication delivery, read-back during verbal communication, and observation of clinical pathway.Continuous quality improvement may be achieved when both the management and staff see medical errors in the correct sense, and frontline staff are willing to report their errors. Key words: Human errors; Health care; Patient safety; Risk management