Case Study: Medical Error Kills Hopkins Cancer Patient

There were specific situations that led to the cause of Julie Thao's actions of medication error and the death of Jasmine. The situation could have completely been avoided had Julie followed the code of ethics and avoided shorts to provide proper care for the patient. The state claimed that Thao's mistake was caused by actions, omissions and unapproved shortcuts, however, there were other factors that played a role in her carelessness as well. While failure to comply with procedure has been a factor in the medication administration error, other factors contributed as well. For example, failure to properly use the information system, or to ignore alerts or warnings have also resulted in preventable errors (Nelson, Evan, & Gardener, 2005). At the time of the event, a bar coding system for all medication had been in effect for a duration of two weeks, however, Thao had been gone one of those crucial weeks. Because of her absence, she did not receive the adequate training, instead, she received a sped

Many current issues and health policies in the health system in America today are impacted by a multitude of healthcare providers. One current issue that has yet to be highly publicized yet impacts all aspects of quality for clinicians is errors in diagnosis. This issue results in various client impacts from economical and additional strain on healthcare, to potential death of patients and social, ethical and potential aspects of neglect (Toker, 2013). Economically the provider’s misdiagnosis can cause the patient substantial cost through repeated tests, procedures or poor outcomes. Misdiagnosis can also cause multiple consults for subspecialties, additional medications, procedures and unanswered questions to diagnosis and results. Furthermore

Medication errors are defined as faults in drug prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, monitoring, ordering, and/or administration. These errors have significant potential for injuring or even killing a patient. Discussed below is an article that highlights the dangers of inaccurate drug administration.

In many cases of negligence bad practice takes in place that are intentional for someone’s financial gain, but in other cases it could be the lack of communication. Many patients face misdiagnosis and treatment from their nurses or doctors and it leads into an unintentional commission. 34- year- old Kim Tutt was healthy and doctors informed her that she had three to six months to live due to jaw cancer. Tutt went ahead with the surgery to get the cancer removed from the left side of her chin to behind her right ear and replaced it with the fibula from her leg. She has children of the ages 10 and 12 years old and wanted to spend as much time that she could in their lives. Her surgery was taken place in July 2000 and in October of 2012 she was

Medical malpractice is a legal offense that occurs when a medical professional fails to perform his or her medical duties due to negligence, thereby causing injury or death to a patient. Therefore the purpose of this essay to highlight how medical practitioners can be negligent by not informing the patient about the inherent risk of the medical procedure such as in the case of Rogers v Whitaker [1992] (hereinafter Rogers). Additionally Cranley v Medical Board of Western Australia [1990] (hereinafter Cranley) will also be investigated to demonstrate how medical practitioners can be alleged to be found for conducting improper professional conduct, and why this improper conduct was overturned by the courts.

In conclusion, in all healthcare settings medical errors occur but it doesn’t only effect the person responsible: all members of the healthcare team are affected. Pharmacy technicians are also capable of identifying any potential or actual errors and report it before the medication is distributed. Since patient safety is universal among all other healthcare practitioners is it important for them to advocate a safe and healing environment for patient

Thus, harmful effects can arise from problems within the practice, with the products, the procedures or the systems. Patient safety therefore demands an intricate system wide effort which involves a wide range of actions surrounding performance improvement, environmental safety and proper risk management which focuses on infection control, the safe use and handling of medicines, equipment safety and creating a safe clinical environment to care for the

Compliance management in a complicated and ever expanding portion of the Health Information Management (HIM) field. As federal, state and local laws are created and revised, HIM professionals must stay current of not only the regulations but also the consequences of non-compliance. Along with federal, state and local laws, attention must be paid to the guidelines of various accreditation and credentialing bodies.

Recognizing, acknowledging, and understanding medication safety is important when administering medications. Understanding which medications are high-risk ones, being familiar with the medications being given, remembering the five most important rights when administering medications, communicating clearly, developing checking habits, and reporting the medication errors will lead to safe outcomes for the residents. However, errors do occur from a lack of experience, rushing, distractions, fatigue, doing too many things at once, not double checking, poor communication, and lack of team work. It is not only the staff that commit errors, but also the work environment that contributes to the medication error. Two examples are poor reporting systems

The concern for safety has become a bigger and more important issue, and these two departments are forming a relationship. Although it has been the tradition for these two departments to work separately, they both have a common goal, to oversee the safety and excellence in healthcare organizations. Some smaller organizations have always had the same person control quality and risk and remained successful. These days, we are seeing a lot more collaborations, goal sharing, ad idea exchanging among these two groups (Perry, 2007). Risk management is critical to every organization. Assessing risks, minimizing errors and damages can be a tough job, but with the help of a quality manager. Sharing plans, tasks, and hopes for the future will make it is easier to focus on what is best for the longevity of a healthcare

Before I discus on the potential action plans if at all there is reoccurrences on the similar incident, I would like to stress on that such incidence should not had taken place at all. I strongly believe that all the nurses including me had learned a lot from this incident and we do not wish to compromise another patient’s life by repeating the same error again. However, medication error is not something new in healthcare service. Researchers had identified medication error is the high numbers of incidents involving nursing practice. Therefore, we still need to plan as there is a saying ‘if we fail to plan then we are planning to fail’. A proper and well designed organizational system should be in place for the process of administration of

I always remind my interdisciplinary team that incident reporting is a virtual every nurse should admire. In our team, we always start the day by discussing our previous day achievements and shortcomings. These shortcomings includes anything that compromises quality of care and patient safety. The philosophy we have adopted is that shortcomings are expected, but undesired and unintentional outcomes. We always strive to identify and analyze factors influence the concurrence of the shortcoming. After understanding the influencing factors, we always try to develop mitigation measures. If the implementation of such measures is beyond the scope of the team, I escalate them for my supervisor, who is always eager to take the necessary action. Although not a panacea, this approach has not only reduced the number of medical errors in my yard, but it has led to improvement of patient care and

Primarily, Caring Memorial Hospital will be held liable in this malpractice case under the premise of respondeat superior. “Under respondeat superior an employer is liable for the negligent act or omission of any employee acting within the course and scope of his employment” (Thornton, 2010, para. 2). The risk manager Susan Post, JD and the quality assurance director Amy Green were both aware of the potential for increased risk on the Oncology unit. They had been making observations several months prior to incident that related to deficiencies in staffing and safety standards. Per, ASCO and ONS (2012) new staff are required to demonstrate competency and receive comprehensive chemotherapy education. Jeffery Chambers, RN was

Safety provi¬sions are interpreted to protect patients from illnesses caused in the course of medical treatment as well as to provide hygienic and injury-free experience in the health care setting. Special provisions exist for safety in pharmaceuticals, blood supply, infectious disease treatment and diagnostics, and mental health services, among others. Ethical codes for doctors, nurses, and other health care workers contain provisions applicable to the patients’ right to safety. Medical errors and other actions that fail to meet safety standards can carry civil, criminal and administrative penalties

According to Media Health Leaders medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Hospitals today are making life threatening mistakes and are looking for a way to fix their ways of error. Three methods that would help lower the number of medical mistakes are the increasing patients’ engagement, improving physician guidelines, while decreasing faculty shifts hours.