Accountability and the Law
Medication errors have a significant impact on patient outcomes. When they occur, they can deter the patient from getting effective services. Thus, it is vital for medication error reporting to improve overall care. Voluntary reporting of medical errors by the hospital staff can encourage the leaders to look into the mistakes. This analysis of errors would enable the hospital to develop preventive measures to avoid the same mistakes in the future, improving the patient outcome significantly (Elden & Ismail, 2016). For instance, if the practitioners report an error in the system resulting in wrong prescriptions, the hospital administrators will ensure the development of systems without such errors facilitating safe medicines to patients in the future.
The second way in which medical error reporting can help in the improvement of patient safety is through the identification of hazards that are existent within the hospital environment. Some elements in the hospital may have gone unnoticed that pose a threat to patient safety. The reporting of such will ensure that the hospital looks into it to enhance patient safety (Carlfjord et al., 2018). Additionally, this voluntary reporting can encourage staff training in these particular areas that are important for continuous improvement in the establishment.
From a personal perspective, the federal government should mandate the reporting of all medical errors. In the United States, medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart diseases and cancer. This shows that it is a problem that is eating too much into society, and it needs control. Suppose the government makes medical error reporting mandatory. In that case, there will be a more significant opportunity to understand the potential hazards and prevent the same before they take away more American’s lives. Sometimes, medical errors may emanate from the carelessness of the practitioners.
Therefore, when it is made mandatory, most practitioners will ensure that they do not err. They dispatch their duties to the best of their abilities, eventually reducing the probability of the occurrence of medical errors. It will also be a boost to the competence of the profession. Mandatory error reporting will even restore the trust that has been lost over the years, helping to improve the overall population health outcomes. However, the government must understand the causes of errors before making this mandatory. Some practitioners may err due to the work burden that they have. Suppose error reporting is made compulsory, and this is still the case. In that case, fewer people are likely to find the profession attractive, creating a worse shortage of medical workers, especially nurses, than there is currently.
References
Carlfjord, S., Öhrn, A. & Gunnarsson, A. (2018). Experiences from ten years of incident reporting in health care: a qualitative study among department managers and coordinators. BMC Health Services Research. 18, 113
Elden, N. M., & Ismail, A. (2016). The Importance of Medication Errors Reporting in Improving the Quality of Clinical Care Services. Global journal of health science, 8(8), 54510