Abstract
The problem of medical errors has nagged the health care system for more than 15 years now. The previous efforts have focused on identifying the cause of the errors rather than the efforts to stop them before harm ensues. The article by Hatcher and others present findings which show that nurses can use various aspects of their personality and professionalism to prevent errors from inflicting harm on patients.
Introduction
About 98,000 patients lose their lives in the USA due to medical errors. This situation is appalling given the emphasis on quality health by the ministry of health. It is essential that the various experts in the healthcare sector examine their roles to find out what they can contribute to reducing medical errors. A necessary part of this process is the role of the medical-surgery nurses. The article by Hatcher and others gives findings which reveal that hospitals can use their nurses’ education, expertise, experience and personality to help in medical error recovery.
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Research Topic, Problems, Advantages and Disadvantages
The topic about factor influencing medical error recovery is of great importance since it will offer the various stakeholders in the health care sector a window to reminiscence on what they can do to ensure patient safety. The fact that patients’ safety is paramount to any health facility implies that this topic will offer a solution to the greatest threat to the healthcare system: reduced patients safety due to medical errors (Gaffney, Hatcher, Milligan, & Trickey, 2016). The topic will impact the nursing practice significantly as it focuses on highlighting the role that the medical-surgery nurses can play in error recovery.
The research problems revolve around the undefined relationships between various factors within a facility and the prevalence of medical errors (Gaffney et al., 2016). The first relationship is between the nurses’ characteristics and the chances of medical error. The second association is between hospital factors and medical errors, and the last is the connection between predictive mechanisms and medical errors. Answering these problems will chart a way of reducing errors in the future.
The advantage of the research includes the fact that it was quantitative research which drew information directly from nurses in the field. Additionally, the research scope spanned various hospitals; thus; the findings could be a representation of many hospital situations in the country. The disadvantage of the research is the fact that it did not offer steps into how the independent variables such education, age, personality, and expertise could be used in the identification, intercepting and correcting of the medical errors.
Hypothesis, Research Methods, and Findings of the Research
The research hypothesis is that quality care will only be achieved if the health care practitioners, especially nurses if hospital managements utilize all of their capabilities. The research is essential since it aims at ensuring that the nurse participates more meaningfully and actively in eliminating medical errors. Such a step will ensure that the ministry of health saves people’s lives and utilize resources to the advantage of medical experts and patients.
The study employed online surveys to find out a cross-sectional interpretation of the problem of medical errors and how nurses can help. The sample population included 184 medical-surgery nurses form hospitals in the mid-Atlantic state (Gaffney et al., 2016). The tools employed for the study were reliable. First, the use of online surveys gave the nurses ample time to attend to the questions without pressure from the researchers; thus they were more likely to provide truthful information. Secondly, the dependent variable, which in the case was medical errors, was measured using the RMEI which has 25 items for self-reporting. As for the independent variable such as age, education, and experience, the Ten-Item Personality Inventory was used. Finally, the data were analyzed using Stata SE version 12.1 and SPSS version 23.
The findings revealed that nurses recovered medical errors to a tune of 3,392 in three months which translated to about 13, 568 medical errors each year. However, the rate of recovery of the mistakes was directly proportional to the levels of education and the expertise of the individual nurses. Therefore, hospitals need to empower nurses through training, career development, and efficient job programs that would utilize their skills, interests, and talents.
Conclusion
The research highlights the importance of fully involving all the stakeholders in the quest to attain a safer patient environment, the fact that the nurses can improve error recovery with proper education and expertise implies that the other experts can also be enhanced. Therefore, the hospital management should go to great lengths to ensure everyone in the system is meaningfully brought on board.
Reference
Gaffney, T. A., Hatcher, B. J., Milligan, R., & Trickey, A. (2016). Enhancing patient safety: factors influencing medical error recovery among medical-surgical nurses. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing , 21 (3), 1-13.
