Education-based medical errors
Education-based medical errors cause catastrophic damage, yet the majority of them are preventable. Prescribing and transcribing stages are the two types where medical errors occur the most. The prescription stage holds over 71% of the total errors in the medical profession. The proportion rises significantly under the emergency section (Miller, Haddad, & Phillips, 2016). Primarily, the most significant cause of these errors is the over-reliance on verbal orders. Also, the lack of knowledge regarding the patient and the drugs administered are two significant causes behind prescribing errors. Generally, even clear and concise verbal instructions can quickly turn into mistakes if they are misunderstood or misinterpreted. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Transcribing errors occur as a result of miscommunication between the person administering the drugs and the one issuing orders. Typically, such mistakes happen when blunders arise from the handwriting process. Additionally, they can be secondary to unclear or misinterpreted instructions. These slip-ups are almost exclusively due to communication failures rather than having limited knowledge of opportunities (Weant, Bailey, & Baker, 2014). Common contributing errors include a multitude of names, dosage forms, and strengths of various agents. While such mistakes usually have catastrophic adversities, they are very preventable.
I would issue instructions and equip myself better to avoid the mistakes. For example, I would acquire sufficient knowledge of the medical procedure and various medicines to prevent errors of prescription. The reason is that the majority of these issues arise from sheer lack of information. Also, I would use the computerized provider-order entry (CPOE) systems to reduce the errors of transcribing. According to Weant et al. (2014), CPOE reduces transcribing errors by almost 100%. Therefore, the two main ways of reducing the incidence of prescribing and transcribing errors are acquiring more knowledge and using an automated system, respectively.