M7 Human Error Journal

Is making errors part of the human condition? Describe how human error and its consequences affect improvements in patient safety.

This journal entry should be 250-300 words. Support your answers with at least two scholarly sources.

ANSWER

Is making errors part of human condition

Every human being makes mistake, human error is an inevitable part of human being. Human error is a label given to any action by a human being that leads to negative consequences. Ideally, the propensity of error is very intrinsic to human activity and behavior that scientifically its best perceived as inherently biologic, since faultless error or performance result from the similar mental process (Marx, 2019). The nature of human error is the same despite the outcome. This means that no consequence is dependent on prevailing circumstances or changes. Therefore, making errors is part of human condition since errors are uncontrolled conditions that have positive impact on learning especially in patient care and are thus important in acquisition of knowledge and skills. However, human errors result to significant portion of preventable accidents in the provision of healthcare.

How Human Error and Its Consequence Affect Improvement in Patient Safety

Making errors in the provision of care is one of the most stressful professional experiences for doctors in the clinical practice. Human errors are considered as unintentional deviation from safe medical practice and patient care (Wolf, Parker and Gleason, 2021). However, human errors in provision of care have great consequences that demand ways to minimize them. Error reporting is one of the most effective ways of minimizing human errors and improve patient safety. Error reports by the health care providers are among the most significant sources of information for the healthcare organization. Human errors and error reporting are valuable learning tools that can be used to improve patient safety. For instance, to understand the frequency, causes and seriousness of a certain medical error result from human error it’s important to collect data on related human errors. Understanding the cause of human error helps in facilitating change in the standards of care, processes, policies and procedures that facilitate patient’s safety. Therefore, human errors play a significant role in the improvement of patient safety.

References

Marx, D. (2019). Patient safety and the just culture. Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics, 46(2), 239-245.

Wolf, L., Parker, S. H., & Gleason, J. L. (2021). Human factors in healthcare. In Patient Safety and Quality Improvement in Healthcare (pp. 319-333). Springer, Cham.