Medical errors have increasingly become a serious health problem and one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Medical error has been the third leading cause of death in the United States (Makary & Daniel, 2016). Medical errors are a difficult problem and it has become challenging to uncover consistency of errors. If medical errors are found, it has become difficult to identify a viable solution that minimizes the chances of the event from reoccurring. There have been several state laws and federal regulations that have been put in place to ensure that medical errors can be reduced. This paper discusses the role of patient safety and the influence of federal initiatives to prevent unintentional death due to medical mistakes.
One of the recent legislation that was introduced to address medical errors was The Medical Errors Reduction Act of 2000. The act called for the implementation of 15 demonstration projects that would ensure optimal strategies that ensure gathering of medical data in order to ensure medical errors are noted. The bill also ensured that there was voluntary and mandatory reporting mechanism that was put in place to ensure public disclosure of reports. An effective reporting of systems is critical to ensure that improvements are made on underlying and less-harmful systems. Reporting errors and harm among patients is important to ensure improvements are made.
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The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 was established to create a voluntary and confidential reporting structure to be used by hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare professionals. The law made it possible to label medical errors into confidential, privileged data and it allowed healthcare providers to report their medical errors through the “patient safety activity” umbrella. The system prohibits information from being used in a civil action (Levy, 2010). All medical errors that were reported are covered by the law and are not subject to subpoena. This ensured that healthcare professionals would easily report any medical errors. Sufficient recording and monitoring of medical errors would ensure that the overall patient safety would be improved.
Healthcare reforms have been created as a way to reduce medical errors. While the main focus of the Affordable Care Act that was signed in March 2010 was to provide access to affordable health insurance, it also created several legislations that created room for the improvement of patient safety. In order to ensure that there are measures that improve patient safety, the Affordable Care Act required Medicare to undertake several strategies. Medicare was created to track the medical error record of each hospital. It was to create a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute which recommends the safest and effective treatments. The requirement was also that there would be an establishment of The Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety that would research on improvement strategies for patient safety (Cohn, 2015).
There have been several bodies that have been created to ensure that there is an improvement in patient safety. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) undertakes several initiatives and programs to prevent infections that are associated with health-care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a partnership for patients that improved care transitions and reduced preventable hospital-acquired conditions. The United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) funds research that promotes patient safety (Winters et al., 2016).
In conclusion, there are several federal initiatives that have been put in place to ensure the improvement of patient safety and to reduce medical errors. The Medical Errors Reduction Act of 2000 was created to gather medical data regarding medical errors. The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 created a voluntary and confidential reporting structure to be used by hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare professionals. The Affordable Care Act was initiated and would improve patient safety. There have been several federal bodies created to ensure an improvement in patient safety.
References
Cohn, J. (2015). A picture of progress on hospital errors. The Milbank Quarterly , 93 (1), 36.
Levy, F., Mareniss, D., Iacovelli, C., & Howard, J. (2010). The patient safety and quality improvement act of 2005: Preventing error and promoting patient safety. The Journal of legal medicine , 31 (4), 397-422.
Makary, M. A., & Daniel, M. (2016). Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US. Bmj , 353 , i2139.
Winters, B. D., Bharmal, A., Wilson, R. F., Zhang, A., Engineer, L., Defoe, D., ... & Pronovost, P. J. (2016). Validity of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Patient Safety Indicators and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Hospital-acquired Conditions. Medical care , 54 (12), 1105-1111.
