Most Mistakes in Emergency Departments Are Due to Human Error

09/25/2009 - News

Most Mistakes in Emergency Departments Are Due to Human Error

By: June Chen, MD

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Emergency departments are often overcrowded hospital settings where the urgency of care makes patient safety more challenging. According to a study published online September 18, 2009 in BMC Emergency Medicine, most of the mistakes that occur in emergency departments are caused by human error.

Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research and their colleagues evaluated medical errors in the emergency departments of 10 hospitals in the Netherlands in order to understand how to improve patient safety. Of the 10 hospitals evaluated, one was a university hospital, 3 were tertiary teaching hospitals, and 6 were general hospitals. Over an evaluation period of 8 to 10 weeks, a total of 522 medical errors were reported, mostly by nurses. Almost half of the medial errors occurred during daytime hours and most occurred during medical examinations or laboratory tests. More than half of these events had some type of consequence for the patient, including prolonged waiting time, delay in starting antibiotic treatment, pain, or even injury.
 
The researchers found that, 60% of the time, the root causes of the medical errors in these emergency departments were human. However, because most of these errors were reported by nurses, the study results may give more information about unintended events related to nursing care, rather than physician care. The investigators hope that this information may help to target research and intervention that can increase patient safety in emergency departments.
 

Source:

BMC Emergency Medicine 2009;9:16. Published online September 18, 2009.

 

Created on: 09/25/2009
Reviewed on: 09/25/2009

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