[Errors in medicine : Causes, impact and improvement measures to improve patient safety].

[Errors in medicine : Causes, impact and improvement measures to improve patient safety].
Anaesthesist. 2015 Aug 26;
Authors: Waeschle RM, Bauer M, Schmidt CE
Abstract
The guarantee of quality of care and patient safety is of major importance in hospitals even though increased economic pressure and work intensification are ubiquitously present. Nevertheless, adverse events still occur in 3-4 % of hospital stays and of these 25-50 % are estimated to be avoidable. The identification of possible causes of error and the development of measures for the prevention of medical errors are essential for patient safety. The implementation and continuous development of a constructive culture of error tolerance are fundamental.The origins of errors can be differentiated into systemic latent and individual active causes and components of both categories are typically involved when an error occurs. Systemic causes are, for example out of date structural environments, lack of clinical standards and low personnel density. These causes arise far away from the patient, e.g. management decisions and can remain unrecognized for a long time. Individual causes involve, e.g. confirmation bias, error of fixation and prospective memory failure. These causes have a direct impact on patient care and can result in immediate injury to patients. Stress, unclear information, complex systems and a lack of professional experience can promote individual causes. Aw...

Source: Der Anaesthesist - August 26, 2015 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Waeschle RM, Bauer M, Schmidt CE Tags: Anaesthesist Source Type: research