Jessica Santillan Case

Often times, people think of hospitals as lifesaving places where miracles happen. however, this is not always the case. There are cases where patients’ deaths occur due to medical errors. Medical error can be defined as a preventable harm to the patients that resulted from medical professionals’ negligence. One of these cases is the story of Jessica Santillan. In the case of Jessica Santillan, Medical professionals can avoid medical errors by increasing efficiency in communication. Jessica was a 17-years-old girl with a serve disorder affecting her heart and lungs. The disorder was found untreatable, thus requiring Jessica to start anew with a new heart and set of lung. During her transplant operation in Duke University Hospital, there was poor communication among the staffs and healthcare professionals. One hour into Jessica’s surgery, the surgeons received a call informing that the organ donor’s blood type did not matches Jessica’s. With …show more content…
In the case of Jessica, there was a major lack of communication between the surgeons and the Carolina Dona Services. According to CBS news Dr. Jagger, a highly regarded surgeon at Duke with 100 heart transplants experience, and the leading surgeon for Jessica’s operation, failed to communicate with the donor service efficiently, leading to the misinterpretation of blood types. More than inter-professional communication failure, this case also present signs of intra-professional communication failure as well; The Duke University hospital noted that, during the procuring process of the second set of organs, the doctor that was in charge of picking up the organs were not informed about Jessica’s blood type from his colleagues. Clear and concise communication between inter and intra professional is critical in providing safe and quality care for the