The Preanalytical Errors In The Healthcare System

Latent failures in healthcare system level external to the hospital and its parent company. The hospital is under two contracts, and it had not updated its policies and procedures’ manual

Congress held hearings at which people who had been harmed by laboratory errors testified. These hearings revealed serious deficits in the quality of work from physician office laboratories and in Pap smear testing results (R. D. Feld, M. Schwabbauer, and J. D. Olson, 2001, The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act [CLIA] and the physician's office laboratory; Virtual Hospital, University of Iowa College of Medi-cine [www.vh.org/adult/provider/pathology/CLIA/CLIAHP.html]). In 1988, Congress once again responded to public concerns about the quality of laboratory testing by passing CLIA '88. CLIA '88 expanded the laboratory standards set by CLIA '67 and extended them to include any facility performing a clinical test. Currently, under CLIA '88,

With the passage of Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) Act the patient would know that unsafe practices and poor quality within any laboratory will not be tolerated. CLIA rules for laboratory testing are more standardized because it outlines the expectations of laboratories. This passage would allow the patient and/or their personal representative access to his or her laboratory test reports and the results of such test from the laboratory. The patient would know that this amendment requires laboratories to implement policies and procedures relating to a patient request for information. Also, the patient would know that there must be a proper verification of identification before he or she has access to PHI. Any laboratory

The materials used for this lab were a 250 ml beaker, 4 glucose testing strips, a dialysis tube that was greater than or equal to 12 centimeters in length, a 50 ml beaker, DH2O, IKI solution, 15% m/v glucose solution, 1% m/v starch solution, a quadruple beam balance

Section 2 of this report, Errors in Health Care: A Leading Cause of Death and Injury, surveys the writing on mistakes to evaluate current comprehension of the greatness of the issue and distinguishes various issues that hinder consideration regarding persistent security. A general absence of data on and attention to mistakes in human services by buyers and shoppers makes it unthinkable for them to request better care. The way of life of pharmaceutical make a desire of flawlessness and ascribes mistakes to lack of regard or inadequacy. Obligation concerns demoralize the surfacing of mistakes and correspondence about how to amend them. The absence of unequivocal and reliable models for understanding wellbeing makes holes in authorizing and accreditation

Since a large part of this lab was based on human measurement, for example determining which pH sticker the dipstick most closely matched, or what the urine smells or looks like, or how much glucose is present, it is very possible that all measurements are slightly off, which could affect the diagnoses for each patient. Also, the diagnoses could be wrong because each sample only displayed a few of the symptoms for each of their respective diagnoses.

The problem of medical errors, and in particular medication errors, prompts an immediate attention from health care industries as it demands conservative actions from health care providers. Although many health-care providers value the importance of patient safety and quality health care, very few admit their faults at the occurrence of errors that could jeopardize the health of many individuals. “Medication errors represent the largest single cause of errors in the hospital setting, accounting for more than 7,000 deaths annually- more than the number of deaths resulting from workplace injuries.” (Katheen & Mason, 2005). The loss of these lives hold health-care providers and current standards accountable while many other untraceable errors resulting in injuries and disabilities go unnoticed.

Diagnosis: The doctor performed a CBC and tested the chemistry of the sample. Sadie had a glucose concentration of 525 mg/dl, far outside of the normal range of 80-120 mg/dl. Sadie was diagnosed

Undoubtedly, laboratory analysis and results are vital part of diagnosis of many disorders and diseases these days. According to Peter et al. (2010), an estimated 60% to 80% of patient management decisions are based on laboratory data. Therefore, accreditation of processes and competence of pathology laboratories is very significant particularly for benefit of patients. The UK was, along with Holland, the first European country to introduce a laboratory accreditation scheme for pathology (Barnes, 2014). Organisations, such as the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS), the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and Clinical Pathology Accreditation (CPA) are crucial institutions in process of laboratory accreditation in UK. The IBMS is

Competency Assessments are regularly carried out by the laboratory head/supervisor so that they get an idea whether all the employees are competent enough to perform the various laboratory tests/procedures on day to day basis(4). If for instance a particular team member is struggling with some procedure then they may not produce the correct results which will affect patient care, as the patient will receive the wrong set of results, thus it will cost them more money and time for their treatment. Thus, these assessments are ongoing throughout the year, plus QAPs are also done regularly in the laboratory to access the skill, performance of all the team members.

To be a medical professional is required very high level of professionalism in every diagnostic testing, as a future medical laboratory professional, I understood what it matters most is not the volume of testing I perform matters but the quality of the testing matters most. At this point know I fully understood the codes of ethics expected from medical laboratory professional from what we covered in

Medical errors are avoidable mistakes in the health care. These errors can take place in any type of health care institution. Medical errors can happen during medical tests and diagnosis, administration of medications, during surgery, and even lab reports, such as the mixing of two patients’ blood samples. These errors are usually caused by the lack of communication between doctors, nurses and other staff. A medical error could cause a severe consequence to the patient in cases consisting of severe injuries or cause/effect any health conditions, and even death. According to recent studies medical errors are not the third leading cause of death in the United States. (Walerius. 2016)

Mistakes and errors can occur normally in our clinical decisions in our clinical settings. In physical therapy settings, these errors could be resulted from such unintended factors such as insufficient experience in achieving some tasks and lack of cognitive and manual skills. The literature showed that the medical errors were not mainly occurred by the inadequate scientific knowledge where they are mostly cognitive in nature, and self-awareness is a way to prevent these errors (Nendaz & Perrier, 2012). The medical errors can be reduced and patient’s safety can be ensured if the physical therapists set some attainable goals that assist in decreasing the medical errors starting from self-awareness about these errors.

Medical errors occur for a variety of reasons. For example, errors can happen when proper documentation doesn’t take place. Documenting things such as allergies, medication, and past surgeries can be very important to the patient chart. Errors such as these an even cause death. “An estimated 1 million medication errors occur each year, contributing to 7000 deaths”.

Point of care testing (POCT) refers to laboratory testing that occurs close to the patient rather than in a central laboratory. POCT is usually performed by non-laboratory trained individuals such as nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, percussionist’s, anesthesia assistants, midwives and paramedics [1]. In recent years, these assays have been increasingly carried out at sites of patient care, such as doctor’s offices, emergency rooms, and even at home. This trend allows for rapid estimates of the state or progress of an illness [2]. POCT is mainly characterized by proximity to the patient, quantitative or semi-quantitative single measurements, short turnaround time, no sample preparation, no pipetting, use of pre-made reagents, user-friendly dedicated analytical instruments and instant, result deduced therapeutic action [3]. In recent years, POCT has gained ground worldwide. In advanced healthcare