HOW QUALITY IMPROVEMENT CAN BE USED TO REDUCE ERROR AND IMPROVE SAFETY OF PATIENTS
Medical errors are a common phenomenon in the everyday operation of the healthcare sector. These errors are due to the human handling of machines and sometimes due to the patient’s negligence or even technical failure of devices. For instance, in the United States, it is estimated that 44,000 Americans lose lives in hospitals due to human errors, while a good number succumb to injuries ( Karsh, 2016 ). These injuries have severe effects, such as physical incapacitation. These errors include:
- Errors due to medication:
These are errors that occur when doctors give medicines patients to either take home or for hospital use. They include faults caused by incorrect drugs, a wrong dosage that is underdose or overdose, and when a drug overreacts with a patient’s body. According to the institute of medicine, medication errors harm nearly 1.5 million people in the U.S. This type of error is preventable. These errors have a con of increasing the cost used to run health care facilities by us dollars 4700 ( Karsh et al., 2019 ).even if the number of patients that die due to these errors, it is not shared. Most people are affected by this kind of mistakes, both in the hospital and outside the hospital. Infants are the most affected by these errors.
The following measures can for reducing medication errors. In essence, installation and proper use of surveillance pieces of equipment due to computerization to help monitor the number of these errors in the hospital, but then this is not 100% effective. Another method is to advise patients to follow the directions given to them by the doctors to the latter. They should also avoid negligence to follow correctly the guidance provided by the doctors or health providers. Health care providers should also be more accurate in prescribing medicines to patients to prevent the harmful effects of the drugs. Minimizing attention distraction can also help health personnel avoid medication errors.
- Errors due to diagnosis:
These errors occur when the healthcare providers fail to or conduct wrong diagnoses using the signs and symptoms presented to them by the patient(s). They include a miscalculated diagnosis or a delayed diagnosis. They may also include diagnosis done partially. These errors are preventable .the following recommendations can help reduce diagnosis errors: the doctor or the nurse should be competent enough to diagnose a patient’s disease correctly. Proper analysis of the illness can also help curb such mistakes.
- Errors due to infections acquired in the hospital:
These are errors resulting from poor handling of medical equipment by the personnel in the healthcare environment. This can be in the form of physical injuries like cuts. It is a preventable kind of error, and health workers must be competent about the use of health equipment to prevent infecting patients and are up-to-date with the pieces of equipment.
- Error that results from little or no follow up sessions after treatments:
This is on the part of the patient and sometimes the healthcare provider. For instance, after surgery, when a patient is scheduled for regular check-ups and fails to do so, he/she may experience a re-infection or even a worsening disease. In this case, the patient should be advised to follow up on treatment to avoid these preventable errors; and the health providers should also be strict on the patients to abide by the measures set for the procedure.
- Failure to act on the results of a test:
These are avoidable errors, and they result from the negligence of the health personnel, especially after a medical procedure e.g., an operation, or only a laboratory test, where they fail to monitor a patient after such procedures. This error is preventable if the medical personnel practice ethics in their duty. Rules should be strict on personnel to ensure patients are attended to in time, and monitoring is appropriately done. There’s also a need to avoid pressure, especially after overworking. Reducing working hours and overtime hours also help eradicate this error
- Errors due to technical hitches:
These errors sometimes are beyond human control. A technical problem happens unexpectedly. This may be due to machine failure or power loss etc. These cannot be prevented, but measures can be taken to reduce these kinds of errors. I proposed that health centers maintain an updated records management system and ensure that the system is always up-to-date with the latest technology. A well-organized information management system is also vital in providing a reduction in errors.
SEIPS MODEL
This model of health care provision detailed the human-related factors that can be applied in improving health care providence; the model contains three large parts, namely socio-technological processes, work processes, and outcomes. The socio-technological work processes include factors such as people, tools, tasks, technologies, organizational structure, and both the external and internal environments (Carayon & Smith, 2016). The work process is central in the model, and it comprises tangible factors like the physical environment, the structure, the climate, and the methods of error reduction. The final part is the outcome that includes the following components: employee outcomes-describes how safe the employees are and the returns to scale from the employees given they are healthy. It also contains the organizational outcomes-patients responsiveness to changes in the health care facility.
SEIPS MODEL:
- It emphasizes the system operation and how it can be applied to health processes and the outcomes
- It is a purely descriptive model with no guidelines on essential elements
Reason /Vincent model:
- It emphasizes on the causes of accidents and the effects of such disasters; describing the factors contributing to such accidents
- Has no discussion whatsoever on processes and ways of improving them
Also, it has no guidance for any method used in redesigning and betterment of patient’s safety
The positive effects of SEIPS in the reduction of errors in high-risk health care settings include:
It increases efficiency with which health systems work hence reducing error. It also gives attention to the design of the system and what affects the design. It provides a broader view of processes and better describes a system, its features, or components. Finally, it provides a procedure for organizing healthcare employees, and this has a benefit in reducing errors.
Continuous Quality Improvement is a strategy applied by healthcare in terms of coming up with better processes and for quality control measures to improve health care to outcomes. It is related to the SEIPS model in that they both aim at improving the quality of health services provision. It improves health service delivery by making better organizational processes. It also has a framework that solves problems using statistical techniques used in diagnosis. It enables workers to understand the system better and identify areas to propose quality improvement. The SEIPS model works in conjunction with CQI as it engineers methods for improving the general quality of healthcare for patients and helps improve safety. It aims to provide a safe working environment and to make the process work more efficiently for the satisfaction of both patients and employees.
In a general sense, therefore, both CQI and SEIPS both work to ensure an improved quality of services delivered for both clients and the health care providers or employees.