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Treatment errors Hospitals want to contain risks for patients
Forgotten OR materials or false anesthetics: Unfortunately, medical errors are not uncommon. Often the causes of such errors can be found in the organization of the clinics. Hospitals are working to reduce risks to patients as much as possible.
Some doctors pose a danger to patients
It has recently been reported that doctors can be a threat to patients due to prolonged overload. Accordingly, many physicians suffer from increasing congestion, alcohol and drug problems, dementia or overconfidence. Patients had therefore demanded better protection against medical errors. It is not always fatal clinic infections or devastating sloppiness like forgotten swabs in the abdomen. There are also many smaller among the tens of thousands of treatment errors. In a recent release of the news agency dpa there is an overview:
Clinics want to minimize medical errors. Picture: Kzenon - fotolia Doctors and nurses can report problems anonymously
The estimates of how many treatment errors exist are very different. According to the Federal Government, they range from 40,000 to 170,000 errors every year in all areas of the healthcare system. Problems in hospitals are the strongest focus. On the Internet, a Healthcare Incident Reporting System (CIRS) can help you understand the problems physicians and nurses report anonymously. The main sources of problems are often found in the organization: inattention, too much stress on the ward, too little staff. The dpa message cites an example reported by a doctor in the anonymous system: a man who was going to be X-rayed fell off the table and broke his arm. For sufferers, the question often arises of what to do.
It is important to know that the statutory health insurance companies are obliged to advise their insured persons in case of suspected treatment errors.
An hour longer with the body open
Also reported are two examples that revealed problems in the operating room. In one case, in a patient with a complicated bone fracture, the metal should be removed, with the OR team relying on the standard tools available. But instead a special tool was needed, which was available but not sterile. It must therefore first be sterilized. Meanwhile, the patient lay with his body open under anesthesia - an hour longer than planned. In the second example, a young man should be put under anesthesia. However, this did not seem strong enough. It was not until the doctors had used the remedy several times that they realized that they had initially used a diluted remedy. The ampoule had been labeled incorrectly.
Forget operating material in the body
But it also comes to far more serious mistakes. In the past year alone, appraisers on behalf of the health insurance funds came to the conclusion in 155 cases that patients died as a result of a mistake. According to some estimates, thousands are dying each year for treatment errors and problems. According to the Patient Safety Alliance, up to 3,000 surgical material is forgotten each year in the body. Meanwhile, more and more clinics are installing the anonymous error reporting system to mitigate the risks. A recent survey suggests that this accounts for well over half of the hospitals. "Even surgical checklists and the identification of operating areas are everywhere introduced where they increase safety," said Georg Baum of the German Hospital Association.
According to the information, a lot has happened in the last few years. According to the study, nine out of ten hospitals surveyed systematically screen patients for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. In addition, standard checks are increasingly helping to prevent confusion between patients, samples and findings, as expert Tanja Manser said at the launch of the study.
Openness is not encouraged
There are still room for improvement in many places. "Unfortunately, in Germany we are still very much inclined to look for guilty parties rather than causes," said Hedwig François-Kettner, head of the Patient Safety Alliance, which includes doctors, clinics, health insurances and patient organizations. In this way openness is not encouraged. According to Manser, for example, in new methods such as surgery robots, too little is often done in advance to prevent potential problems. "It's amazing that more than 40 percent of the houses have not thought about it." The bottlenecks in nursing are particularly great. Jens Baas, head of the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), said: "We definitely have a nursing shortage in many hospitals." Trade unionists were also able to determine this. When Verdi made unannounced visits to hundreds of clinics in March during a nocturnal campaign, it was found that in 56 percent of all wards a specialist had to care for an average of 25 patients. A clear risk factor for the union.
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