Mistakes happen often in the medical field as they happen in any other field of practice. When medical errors happen, people are always to ask why, how, and for what reasons. Nonetheless, a number of circumstances result in medical errors. The general medical industry system is to blame for a number of errors among medical practices. Some of the causes in this field include slow adoption of new technologies among medics, failure to make reports of medical errors for fear of lawsuits, over-tired doctors who have to spend a lot of time carrying out medical activities, and inefficiency in the side of the doctors. Moreover, other causes in this field include unwanted medical tests that could lead to lawsuits.
Individual doctor mistakes result in unwanted medical errors. Doctors make mistakes that cannot be avoided easily. For an instance, Doctors can be involved in mistakes like poor dosage instructions, poor handling, and elementary mistakes that can be made by the best doctors in the field. Patient mistakes are some of the other causes of medical errors. Patients contribute to mistakes when they engage in activities like failure to report symptoms, fear of legal issues and hence failure to admit to consuming illicit drugs, and failure to pay attention to medical labels and instructions. Some of the other mistakes come from pharmaceutical mistakes, and pathology mistakes that cannot be prevented by doctors.
Activities or initiatives that make up the patient safety movement
Activities that make up patient safety movement are directed at establishing pathways, which can be use to curb occurrences of medical errors. Errors happen among medics and patients. Some of the activities include identification of patients, establishment of sound-like drug names, drug labelling, good storage of drugs in and out of hospitals, and identification of allergies among patients and medical staff. Some other activities include the creation of continuity of care practices, management of wounds, and identification of surgical sites so that patients and medical staff can refrain from them.
Patient safety starts with the safety of the environment and drugs that are going to be used within the medical environment. The concerned departments must be incorporated with equitable cleaning of the environment, and confirmation of the medical facilities and drugs to be used. Moreover, they should ensure that the medical practises are done within the reach of healthy environments. Patients should be encouraged to be part of the contributors to strategies and suggestions to foster patients’ safety. For instance, education should direct them to take medical instructions as they have been prescribed, and be free to share any pertinent information on symptoms to the medical personnel without fear of lawsuits. Moreover, aspects of self-efficacy and awareness should be emphasised to patients and the medical personnel who are concerned with delivery of medical services to patients.
Impact of the movement on tort reform
Tort law encourages a permanent elicitation of a solution to the problems of errors in the medical field. The patient safety movement alters the general performance of the tort reform in the society. Tort reform ensures every action or destructive feature is catered for by the right legal procedures. Nonetheless, the existence of patient safety movements will overlook the tenets of tort law in the human society.
Criticisms of the movement
Patient safety movement has come under immense criticism from the public and the medical sectors. The procedures and mechanisms put forth to deal with patient safety are detrimental to the general observance of the laws and regulations that guide medical practices. There is no perfect manner in which errors can be eradicated as far as human interventions are involved. The movement advocates for a complete patient safety, yet with no specifications on how each member involved will be protected. When the measures of identifying patients and letting them have secured ways treatment are used, the methods used are a detriment to the safety of the patient in one way or the other. Even when all the constitutions for safety are put forth, errors will keep occurring within these measures of promoting patient safety movement in the medical field.
There is a near-zero reporting among patients and the medical personnel involved. It will be hard to assist people who have a difficulty in reporting sentiments that are direct to the state of their health. Patients lead the race in failing to report cases of medical errors. For instance, patients will avoid stating some symptoms of taking illicit drugs for fear of the subsequent lawsuits. Other patients fear emergent measures that are likely to be named after them when they reveal any error within the medical process. For instance, it is hard to avoid an error that has been inspired by the participant. On the side of the medical personnel, failure to report cases of medical errors is common. Medical personnel fear lawsuits and other circumstances that will follow if they are made guilty of committing errors. This happens when such errors might have resulted in deaths and other serious damages to the process of medical coverage.
Unwillingness to participate in all the processes of patient safety is a leading huddle that many societies face in the world. It is extremely crucial if all the members involved in the process are offered their credible support in order to eradicate the aspect of errors in the medical field. Nonetheless, unwillingness among the medical personnel and the patients makes the entire process be in vain. On the other hand, when patients are trusted to protect their medical conditions, many medical personnel rely so much on this that any error will be inevitable.