Medical errors include mistakes that occur in hospitals and present the risk of elevation of the health issue or fatalities. There is a need to address these errors to ensure that the healthcare sector provides quality services ( Nelson & Staggers, 2016 ). Also, there is a necessity to address the causes of the errors to ensure a decline in mortality.
Thesis Statement
The research paper will analyze issues related to medical errors in healthcare. The paper will also discuss the use of information theory to find solutions t medical errors to prioritize patient safety and care.
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Uncoordinated Care (Solution)
With patients' movement from one location to another, the issue of medical errors caused by poor coordination between health providers has become an area of concern in healthcare service.
There is a need to address the issue of poor healthcare outcomes as a result of diagnoses and prescriptions done by different specialists.
The absence of coordination between nurses and doctors is also a major area of worry, that may cause deterioration of patient’s health or mix up of patient care in some cases where the wrong care is given by the nurses to the wrong patient ( Anderson & Abrahamson, 2017 ).
2. One of the important considerations in the research on eliminating medical errors is the utilization of the information theory, which involves the collection, storage, and communication of information in healthcare facilities ( Braunstein, 2014 ).
It is vital to analyze the use of electronic health records to gather data about patients and use this data to make sure that prescriptions are informed by patient history and health records to avoid possible errors ( Kasemsap, 2017 ).
Recommendation
The topic of uncoordinated care in hospitals is important as it aims at creating better service delivery and systems to support patient care in the facilities.
Despite American hospitals having high and improved technology levels for the treatment of illnesses such as cancer, there are occurrences of deaths resulting from issues like lack of quality outcomes ( Nelson & Staggers, 2016 ).
Researching more on measures such as improving hospitals' coordination through improved communication systems and skills among professionals could help improve recoveries in health care.
Medical errors, including lack of coordination in care, cause 100000 deaths every year, which can be avoided by creating better policies in hospitals and by the government ( Makary & Daniel, 2016 ).
The topic is also vital as there is a need to create availability and equality in healthcare delivery by analyzing the benefits of patients getting care anywhere as a result of movement of patient information from previous hospitals ( Yang & Mao, 2018 ).
Relevant Background Material/ Conclusion
Critical background materials include textbooks like the contemporary health informatics, which offers information on the various existing technological systems available and the need to incorporate policies to guide information sharing.
The use of past statistical records on cases of fatalities caused by medical errors is important as it will provide background information on the problems caused by these errors and mortality rates as a result of the issues.
There will be the inclusion of information from policy materials on policy requirements for healthcare providers to ensure more knowledge of the various solutions necessary for hospitals, such as establishing a policy to guide the transaction of information within the facility or from the hospital to organizations as an insurance company ( Kalra et al., 2020 ).
The use of the course textbook "health informatics inter-professional approach" will play a crucial role in analyzing communication between health professionals and other relevant professionals to benefit the patient.
References
Anderson, J. G., & Abrahamson, K. (2017, January). Your Health Care May Kill You: Medical Errors. In ITCH (pp. 13-17).
Braunstein, M. L. (2014). Contemporary health informatics . AHIMA Press. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780323402316/cfi/6/2!/4/4/2@0:0
Kalra, J. J., Rafid-Hamed, Z., & Seitzinger, P. (2020, July). Disclosure of Medical Error: A Necessary Step in Healthcare Improvement. In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 11-16). Springer, Cham.
Kasemsap, K. (2017). The perspectives of medical errors in the health care industry. In Impact of medical errors and malpractice on health economics, quality, and patient safety (pp. 113-143). IGI Global.
Makary, M. A., & Daniel, M. (2016). Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US. Bmj , 353 .
Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2016). Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach . Elsevier Health Sciences. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781584264491/cfi/6/2!/4/2@0:0.125
Yang, J., & Mao, L. (2018). Understanding temporal change of spatial accessibility to healthcare: An analytic framework for local factor impacts. Health & place , 51 , 118-124.
