Prevalence and Types of Medical Errors at a Trauma Center in Isfahan, Iran (2018-2019)

Abstract

Introduction: Clinical errors can affect patient safety, reduce the quality of care, or even cause irreparable harm to the patients. Attention has been primarily tended to be directed toward medication errors; accordingly, limited focus has been placed on other clinical errors, such as caring, therapeutic, and blood transfusion errors. Regarding this, the present study was aimed to perform a comprehensive investigation of the type and prevalence of different clinical errors in a teaching trauma hospital. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was targeted toward the evaluation of the types and frequency of medical errors in the Trauma Center of Ayatollah Kashani Hospital in Isfahan, Iran, during 2018 and 2019. The data were collected using a clinical error reporting form, covering such data as the type of error, error severity, and associated ward. The data were analyzed in SPSS software, version 16. Results: A total of 375 errors were reported, the majority of which were related to imaging and radiology domains (26.7%), followed by laboratory and blood bank (22.9%). In terms of job position, nurses (42.6%) and physicians (29.5%) made the majority of the errors. Furthermore, most of the errors occurred in the morning shifts (57.3%) and at the hospital emergency department (28.9%). Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, the emergency department requires more attention to reduce the documentation errors of radiology and imaging.