Poor communications between healthcare providers account for about seven out of every 10 patient deaths caused by a mistake in medical care.
This statistic is attributed to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality as part of the findings of a study released last month on how to prevent medical communication errors. The study was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research-Human Factor.
Types of Miscommunication That Can Harm Patients
This study looked at communications during patient handoffs in hospitals – the ending of one care giver shift and the beginning ...
Truck driver is one of the nation’s most deadly occupations. Many of the same factors that place truckers in peril unfortunately also contribute to fatal trucking accidents that kill numerous other people.
In December 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual census of the country’s fatal occupational injuries. This latest census covered fatal work injuries for 2015. It reported that transportation and material moving jobs were responsible for a fourth of all work-related deaths and among this collection of workers, tractor-trailer drivers experienced ...
Nurses have a difficult job. The work they do – providing medical care – is challenging enough. Throw in high daily workload volumes and it’s understandable just how demanding a role nurses endure.
But that’s not to excuse the preventable mistakes in patient care they make, such as medication errors, because patients can suffer real and irreparable harm from them.
Mistakes in dispensing medications are a leading type of medical error. Some estimates link as many as 7,000 patient deaths each year to a drug error. Medication mistakes by nurses are of particular concern as nurses ...