Medical errors are very common in health care systems. Some of the errors are as a result of unavoidable circumstances while others are human errors that can be avoided. Most of the medical errors that lead to severe injuries and deaths can be avoided (IOM, 1999). One of the most practical ways of handling these errors is through proper planning. These practices are as a result of ignorance and lack of awareness on the safe health care practices. Medical errors reduce the accuracy of medical services and thus increasing safety risks on both medical experts and health care consumers (Donaldson, 2010).
There are various cultural and structural limitations that have most organizations to stick to the traditional rules of engaging medical operations (AHRQ, 2002). The healthcare organizations make use of the traditional record keeping systems that entirely rely on manual documentation. The manual record keeping systems are subjected to numerous errors in documentation and storage of patient information. These systems also are very slow in documenting and retrieval of patient information. Sharing of medical information and records among the experts is very tedious, and it exposes patient information to violation of privacy and confidentiality. The nature of the recording and documentation procedures leads to commitment of numerous errors that endanger the lives of the patients. The organizational structures and culture are the main source of resistance to change to facilitate the use of modern documentation techniques.
Application of best practices in nursing documentation is one of the most practical techniques that has been employed to reduce medical errors. The use of technology in documentation has assisted in boosting the quality of health care through alleviating errors associated with documentation. Technology has assisted in automating most health care systems and thus facilitating easy retrieval of healthcare records and effective transmission from one health care department to another (AHRQ, 2002). Health informatics are very important in organizing patient information and thus reducing the errors that are associated with documentation.
- AHRQ, (2002). Medical Informatics for Better and Safer Health Care. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved from http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/informatic/informatics/index.html
- Donaldson, M. S. (2010). To Err is Human. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2673/
- IOM, (1999). To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Institute of Medicine. Retrieved from https://www.iom.edu/
