Study Published in the Journal Anesthesiology Finds Medical Errors in Half of the Surgeries Analyzed Accurate documentation via medical transcription is important in a hospital setting where wrong drug names and wrong dosages can result in adverse events.
Medical Transcription Services
A new study published in the October 2015 issue of Anesthesiology highlighted the fact that medical errors occurred during half of the operations analyzed. It was found that one- third of all errors were due to adverse drug events such as incorrect dosing, wrong labelling of drugs and errors in drug documentation. Accurate documentation via medical transcription of physician dictated medical notes is of great significance in a hospital setting where wrong drug names and wrong dosages can result in adverse events compromising patient welfare and safety.
Disturbing Error Statistics The study stated that out of 277 operations performed at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts
General
Hospital
(MGH)
involving
3,671
observed
medication
administrations, 124 were associated with medical errors or adverse drug events. The Harvard researchers said that around 193 medication errors and adverse drug events were recorded. Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, a national leader in patient safety conducted this in order to improve their efficiency and outcomes. They wanted to quantify and address the risk of drug error during surgery. The study is the first stage to identify the incidence of medical errors and adverse drug events before, during and immediately after the surgical procedure. The study noted that in many hospital set-ups, the safety checks are often loosened or liberal in the surgical environment, when fast moving events and changing circumstances often require quick decision and immediate action. The anesthesia-trained staff studied randomly selected surgeries to pinpoint the medical errors and adverse drug events during a period of 8 months from 2013- 2014. The study showed the following results: ďƒź Out of 2 surgical procedures, 1 was observed to have a medical error.
ďƒź Adverse drug events and medical errors were common in surgical procedures, especially those which lasted for more than six hours and those which included 13 or more medication administrations.
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More than 1 in twenty or 5% peri-operative medication administrations led to a medical error or adverse drug event.
Nearly 80%of the medication errors were determined to have been preventable.
66% of medication errors had the potential to cause an adverse event and 33% of the medication errors led to adverse drug events.
From all the medication errors and adverse drug events observed, 64 were considered serious, 33% were significant and less than 2% were considered lifethreatening. According to Dr. John Combes, chief medical officer of the American Hospital Association in Washington, D.C., U.S. hospitals are looking for ways to improve patient care and patient safety. Studies of this kind are significant to understand the various types of medical errors that can occur so that the staff and management can find ways to reduce errors and provide a better experience for their patients.
Improving Clinical Documentation with Medical Transcription Services In any clinical setting, medical transcription can be of immense support. Whether physicians choose to dictate their notes or use EHR and voice recognition software, a medical transcription service is still relevant. Now EHR-integrated transcription service is a good option, wherein the service provider can interface with the physician/hospital EHR and complete the necessary documentation. For healthcare providers using voice recognition systems, medical transcriptionists can edit the transcribed text, provide the necessary formatting and correct software-related errors if any.
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800-670-2809