Patients: How To Prevent Human Mistake In Medicine

The British Association of Anesthesiologists created new guidelines to prevent the medical mistakes in critical care and surgery, containing recommendations for all medical disciplines.

In Our Eyes, They Seem To Be Gods, Yet They Are Not. They Are Individuals

The purpose of the healthcare professionals who support us in our time of need, in trying circumstances, and in life-threatening situations.

Additionally, since they are human, they are prone to error, particularly when the design of the healthcare system increases their level of stress.

In emergency situations requiring surgery, critical care, and anaesthesia, reducing doctor mistakes may save lives.

In order to reduce human error in medicine, the Association of Anesthesiologists of Great Britain has released new recommendations that emphasise the “human elements” that must be considered in order to prevent it.

Ergonomics uses the phrase “human factors” while acknowledging that individuals make errors and that human error cannot be completely eradicated. He also acknowledges that under extreme pressure, individual and team performance may vary and get confused with one another. It considers collaboration and communication, comprehends how people interact, and comprises system components, guiding principles, information, and techniques for improving working circumstances, as well as the more effective functioning of the healthcare system. The “human factor” techniques are divided into four sections that resemble a pyramid, with the design of the surrounding environment, the used materials, and the systems being given top priority. Education and specialisation are placed last, contradicting the current data about the structure of health systems, which indicates that excellent human resource performance is necessary to provide care for the population. Next is the area of barriers that enter the health system to prevent mistakes, followed by the area of minimising the effects of the mistakes that are unavoidably made.

British anesthesiologists are concentrating on three crucial elements that have caused patients to die as a result of the respiratory infections that have brought Britain’s health system to its knees, hospitalisations that last longer, and a shortage of beds. Human mistakes, refraining from defying the government, and depending on subpar healthcare systems are the three contributing causes.

In fact, Dr. Fiona Kelly, a consultant to the United Royal Hospitals of the Foundation of the British health system in Bath and one of the authors of the new guidelines for anesthesiologists, notes that “here, we are not referring to avoidable deaths (a term that refers to the appropriate management of chronic diseases to improve the sufferer’s health), but to the long-term effects on patients who survive after mistakes and side effects of medical practise, that can have a lasting negative impact on patients

“The new rules examine potential places where a human mistake might occur and have terrible consequences. They may be used in other medical specialities as well. This human factors approach seeks to make it simple for healthcare workers to do what is right and difficult or impossible to do what is wrong “Finally, Dr. Kelly says.

The study that forms the basis of the new recommendations, which was published in the journal Anaesthesia, notes that the British health system is set up to rely primarily on the work of its human resources, with few and unstable structures related to safety, making safety even more unstable under pressure.

The 12 Suggestions

The following is included in the experts’ guidelines to prevent medical mistakes:

Design Of The Materials And Infrastructure

The design of medical equipment should be carried out by experts from the beginning and account for the human aspect while using it, meaning that the plan may need to be changed if required, however, this is not always the case now. The human component should be included in evaluations throughout the medical equipment procurement process.

Anesthesiologists, pharmacists, and procurement departments should see to it that these authorities are given priority in their buying procedures in order to optimise readability and limit the danger of mis-selection in the design of ampoules and packaging for the medicinal product. The changes that could matter include making the drug’s name stand out more from the manufacturer’s name and logo, giving the drug’s active ingredient precedence over its brand name, and designing container colours that take colour blindness into consideration.

The human aspect should be considered while designing a safe work environment. The architecture of the operating room, the hospital as a whole, and the usage of mobile equipment in each procedure should all be reviewed on a regular basis to make sure that safety has not been compromised.

Pitfalls For Errors

To provide for proper preparation and lessen the time strain on staff, difficult circumstances and expensive procedures should be given more time in the design and scheduling of the surgical list.

To guarantee usability and efficacy, cognitive aids, along with algorithms and checklists, should be created and evaluated following guidelines that take into account the human component.

Soft skills may be taught and used regularly by staff members to help them become acquainted with and make good use of them. All staff members are affected by them, and they relate to having complete situational awareness of the incident’s history, the present, and potential future events.

Reducing The Effect Of Mistakes

Teams of executives with the necessary investigative tools and training on the human component should look into serious and unintended mistakes. The knowledge gained from these errors must be shared. For instance, the current methods of examining root causes currently used in the care system are replaced by a new safety framework for an incident response that considers the principles of the human factor (UK hospitals have been given a deadline to implement the new institutional safety framework by autumn 2023).

All anesthesiology departments should have monthly meetings on patient morbidity and mortality, and courses on successful instances should be conducted. Staff members should also be given time to attend these meetings at the same time.

Training And Education

All surgical teams should get education and training in the guidelines of the human aspect. This applies to anesthesiologists as well. The value of developing forward-thinking health systems, as well as the necessity of soft skills and techniques to enhance all of these characteristics, should be emphasised in education.

In order to ensure that the teams that work together are trained concurrently and jointly, there should also be training in non-technical and interprofessional simulation skills. Soft skills have to be taught in the classroom and in the clinic, incorporated into all lab and anaesthesia courses, and practised often during interprofessional simulation training. Because of this, it requires effort and time, both of which must be properly distributed.

Ideal Working Circumstances

Hospitals and anesthesiology departments should apply organisational measures to improve staff working conditions.

Strategy

A human agent head with the proper amount of education should lead each anesthesiology division. Every hospital needs to have a patient safety director with the necessary training and credentials. This is previously included in the guidelines for health education in England.