Steadily Preventing Harm
Ta, Lynn
Introduction
Patient care is a delicate balance of time for health providers. This is something to be aware of because there are more citizens than health professionals. In North Carolina, the 2006 Census reported an estimated 253 doctors caring per 100,000 residents (State Ranking). Providers rush between patient rooms given the number waiting, thus spending less time with an individual. This paper will analyze complications caused by hospital-acquired conditions (HAC), objectives for this problem, and the government’s role in the solution.
What is the Problem? HAC is a problem because of the economic, physical, and psychological issues resulting from it. Records of 1999 estimated 98,000 people dying from unanticipated complications in American hospitals with another million injured (Landrigan et al., 2010). These figures may be an extreme underestimation with the Journal of Public Safety estimating 440,000 deaths per year since the initial data collection began in 1999 (Binder, 2013). Possible causes could be from a surgical tool left behind in the patient’s body to the …show more content…
Patients and average individuals are most likely to support policy change because they suffer the most from HAC. Medical personnel face an intermediate level of harm, because their livelihood and reputation is affected, but they are not directly impacted by the patient’s injury. There may be psychological impacts because many take on the Hippocratic oath to do no harm to those under their care. Those most likely to be both opposing and supporting policy change would be politicians and lobbying political groups. Perverse incentives are often a problem with these groups who are most distant from the suffering individual. Depending on what their interests and motives are about the situation, policy choices can start or kill the motion for changes to address the
Ta, Lynn
Introduction
Patient care is a delicate balance of time for health providers. This is something to be aware of because there are more citizens than health professionals. In North Carolina, the 2006 Census reported an estimated 253 doctors caring per 100,000 residents (State Ranking). Providers rush between patient rooms given the number waiting, thus spending less time with an individual. This paper will analyze complications caused by hospital-acquired conditions (HAC), objectives for this problem, and the government’s role in the solution.
What is the Problem? HAC is a problem because of the economic, physical, and psychological issues resulting from it. Records of 1999 estimated 98,000 people dying from unanticipated complications in American hospitals with another million injured (Landrigan et al., 2010). These figures may be an extreme underestimation with the Journal of Public Safety estimating 440,000 deaths per year since the initial data collection began in 1999 (Binder, 2013). Possible causes could be from a surgical tool left behind in the patient’s body to the …show more content…
Patients and average individuals are most likely to support policy change because they suffer the most from HAC. Medical personnel face an intermediate level of harm, because their livelihood and reputation is affected, but they are not directly impacted by the patient’s injury. There may be psychological impacts because many take on the Hippocratic oath to do no harm to those under their care. Those most likely to be both opposing and supporting policy change would be politicians and lobbying political groups. Perverse incentives are often a problem with these groups who are most distant from the suffering individual. Depending on what their interests and motives are about the situation, policy choices can start or kill the motion for changes to address the