Essay On Patient Safety Dilemmas

Negligent doctors come in all shapes and sizes, ethnicities, and religions. Even they do not even realize that some of the decisions they make, no matter how petite they may appear to be at first, can greatly impact their career as a whole. The American Medical Association conducted three large studies over the past 30 years, and has documented a distressingly consistent rate of medical mishaps in the U.S. By one measure, such negligence in American hospitals may result in 80,000 deaths each year (Gorman). Hospitals, nursing homes, and even rehabilitation hospitals, have been accused of mistreating and neglecting their patients. So often, in fact, have these lawsuits been filed in the United States, that it has caused the federal government to seriously consider them. There are still some skeptics, however, who argue that …show more content…
The Patient Safety Organization (PSO) databases will allow healthcare providers to share aggregated data on errors, including causes and solutions, creating an evidence-based approach to patient safety on a national scale, with annual reports identifying trends and tracking improvements. Close calls are the best indication of an organization's risk exposure. The mistakes that are caught before harm occurs should be considered red flags, signifying problem areas that need immediate attention (Mc Bride 157).

One surprising finding is that many malpractice lawsuits today are not even due to medical negligence, but to poor communications and mismanaged expectations. Based on several recent studies, it was concluded that the patients who have not suffered damage from actual malpractice filed the majority of lawsuits against physicians (Dolin 255). The patients' attorneys say the main reason that clients approach them with the intention of suing a doctor is that they couldn't get a satisfactory response to their complaints or questions about their care (Karp