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Diagnostic Errors In Health Care

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In 1999, the Institute of Medicine reported that the U.S. Health care was responsible for the death of at least 44,000 people, and as many as 98,000 death in hospitals each year (pg.1). Diagnostic errors such as delay in diagnosis, administering the wrong medication, Inadequate monitoring or follow-up of treatment and in some cases failure of equipment to function correctly. These preventable errors were responsible for a high number of death yearly in this country (p2). Despite efforts to decrease the number of death from these errors the authors of BMJ reported that currently medical errors are reported as the third leading cause of death in the United States (Makary & Daniel, pg.1). In order for us to find effective solutions and be in a position to prevent and eliminate these errors we must first acknowledge that we do have a big problems that need to be fix and time to fix these problems are now. Cancer is one of the most frequent diagnostic errors to occur. Here doctors can spend more time with their patients so that they can answer all possible questions and give all needed answers. By doing this, doctors and patients can develop a relationship which will make it easier for patients to share information about their health with their physicians.
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First, each death that occur due to medical errors should be documented on all death certificate. By doing this we can truly have a true estimate of death due to medical errors, and this too can highlight those physicians and other healthcare workers who play in part in the death of an individual. Also, the authors believed that the hospitals should carry out a rapid and efficient investigation to determine why and what can be done in the future to prevent these kinds of errors. Doctors, nurses and all those involved should be retrain if necessary

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