POST #1 – Candice
As told by Hemmelgarn (n.d.), Alyssa Hemmelgarn’s tragic story illustrates the importance of promoting patient safety by preventing medical errors. Studies indicate that many patients die from medical mistakes, and Pozgar (2014) reported that medical errors are among the leading causes of patient death. The article highlighted that medical errors could be prevented and usually result from under-skilled staff, decision-making errors, health system defects, or preventable drug side effects. The case of Alyssa is a representation of the detrimental effects of a medication error. The article educates health professionals on preventing drug errors by being diligent, empathetic, and respecting the client’s rights. Nurses should monitor and ensure clear and therapeutic communication between clients and their families. The article also emphasizes the importance of adhering to standard safety protocols and patient medication administration rights.
From the article, a potential barrier that would deter ethical nursing practice has minimal nursing staff in a busy hospital with many patients. I have worked in active clinical settings with understaffed nurses, and it was challenging to address all the complaints of the family and patients since I was overwhelmed by the workload. Another potential barrier would be the caregiver’s inability to question the doctor’s instructions. This action may seem easy, but it is almost impractical. Nurses feel like subordinates to the doctors and hence cannot question their orders even though they are the patient advocates.
References
Hemmelgarn, C. (n.d.). Alyssa Hemmelgarn • Patient Safety Movement. Patient Safety Movement. https://psmf.org/patient-safety/patient-stories/al…
Pozgar, G. D. (2014). Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals (4th ed.). Jones &
Bartlett Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781284089530
This was such an awful video to watch because you can see the hurt and pain that this family member had to endure due to not one but several medical errors that were done on her daughter while she was in the hospital. This mother had to go through her daughter dying but also not being able to find out information on what happen or even getting the medical documents which this should not be okay. Hospital acquired infections can be prevented in so many different ways but this scenario unfortunately failed to do so. This article stated ways to prevent hospital acquired infection including “identifying patients at risk of nosocomial infections, observing hand hygiene, following standard precautions to reduce transmission and strategies to reduce� (Mehta, 2014). This devastating because this mother accepted her lost but wanted to make sure the organization was doing the right things to improve and not let this happen again but they pretty much shut down on her which is completely unfair. 3 years and 7 months to have a conversation is very unethical and should never happen especially if it was due to medical errors. These errors can be prevented with protocols and following the standard of care. This video was extremely hard to watch but much needed because these are real people that have to endure these tragedies.
Mehta, Y., Gupta, A., Todi, S., Myatra, S., Samaddar, D. P., Patil, V., Bhattacharya, P. K., & Ramasubban, S. (2014, March). Guidelines for prevention of hospital acquired infections. Indian journal of critical care medicine : peer-reviewed, official publication of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC39631…
Requirements: 1-2 paragraphs