News folk are focusing on Dallas hospital - good in terms of learning curve. They are, however acting like a medical error is a unheard of entity.
Humans error . Period. Part of the human condition. One could say they do not impact a whole bunch of people. Since 2008 vehicular deaths have killed of 170,000. What do we call them accidents.
But it is not contagious.......what the mistake was made about does not change the reality that it was a mistake. Nothing more. The entire "event" thus far has taken the stance that IF that did not occur things would be different. We can not know that, the media are not helping anyone by focusing on a group of some people, who spend their work days helping people, working in exhausting, stressful emotionally draining environs.
All variables that impact performance precisely because they are human beings. There is no human being protected from fatigue and its impact, on performance, in any domain. It could be working on garden or it could be flying the A380.
Fatigue is fatigue. It was the first "event". Humans do learning curves in different ways. But all learning is weakest when it is the "first" time.
Casues of medical errors :
the 5 most commonly mus-diagnosed diseases are:
infection, neoplasm, cordiality infarction, pulmonary embolism, and cardiovascular disease.
[
Poor communication (whether in one's own language or, as may be the case for
medical tourists,-another language),
Human error has been implicated in nearly 80 percent of adverse events that occur in complex health care systems.
vast majority of medical errors result from faulty systems and poorly designed processes versus poor practices or incompetent practitioners.
[
improper documentation, illegible handwriting, inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios,
Variations in health care provider training & experience
cognitive pitfalls", biases which cloud our logic. For example, a practitioner may overvalue the first data encountered, skewing his thinking. Or recent or dramatic cases which come quickly to mind and may color judgment.
One study found that being awake for over 24 hours caused
medical interns to double or triple the number of preventable medical errors, including those that resulted in injury or death.
[3
The risk of car crash after these shifts increased by 168%, and the risk of near miss by 460%
fatigue
[35][36][37] depression and burnout.
[38]
Factors related to the clinical setting include diverse patients, unfamiliar settings, time pressures, and increased patient to nurse staffing ratio increases.
[
Patient actions may also contribute significantly to medical errors.
medical care entails some level of risk,
Common misconceptions regarding an adverse event:
Bad apples" or incompetent health care providers are a common cause
High risk procedures (me, actually less chance of medical error)complex procedures entail more risk, adverse outcomes are not usually due to error, but to the severity of the condition being treated.)
:This is true of any activity completed by humans. Perceived need to go slow careful etc. IN anything repetitive performance decreases. One is familiar with the behavior. Doing an encasement on a typical admission compared to a patient coming in with their head turned around in a car accident. It awakens need to be more focused.
What is the benefit for the media to endlessly go over this. It is past. In reality, sounds horrible (same in aviation, there are milestone accidents that result in profound changes and improvement.) Same here, this has markedly resulted in actions that will reduce the likelihood of a familiar error (backlash here is what we are seeing IMO. If a symptom of a new illness was their nose falls off that is a lot "better" than the best indicator is running a fever)
I ran a fever coming off of coffee! No joke. A boo boo on a finger can result in a fever.
the medias notion that a "fever" should have resulted in this firestorm of ha mat trucks, tents,armies of folks , fences being put up alb alb. Most people do not die from a fever, so the red flag is really unlikely. A pt coming into an emergency room with a knife in their in there heart results in different responses.
Hospitals have made changes. This is positive . This mistake resulted in one sad death. Forgetting to turn off propane pipeline different end result.
We do not know if three nurses called off, if 4 four heart attacks were admitted right before he walked in. We do not know if staff had trouble with the accent. We do not know if staff member found out the night before that a family turned from stable to critical, if ones pet passed two days ago. Variables that impact us, as a result of being human. That simple IMO.
Instead of the media focusing on a team of infallible human beings - this could have been a teaching moment if the media were as endlessly broad casting blame instead of repeating the importance of taking travel history with more acumen. That is beneficial. That is a compnent of their real responsibilities.
Enough already, CNN move forward , use it as an educational opportunity.
I am also confident that the individuals, involved the situation that fateful day in the ER are living their own private anguish as a result of their involvement in what occurred
For those pained folk to be turning on the TV to hear media endlessly blaming you for what is inevitable. Has got to be hard in itself
Without doubt IMO, the notion if this had not occurred America would have, in eternity, never had an Ebola case here, is just ludicrous......................................................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_error
And just one more thing! This new screening IMO, is a compete joke. There are going to be millions and millions of folks who get on a plane , running a fever, wiht no connection to Ebola, what a mess this is gonna .................IMO, lets watch
that snarls up everything....does nothing to end "ebola
Its govenrment folks bsing people so they look on the ball.....the millions that is gonna be spent on this would be better spent going to Africa and deal wiht issue at ground zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
hoh:
