Doctors Should Report Errors
Posted: Saturday, June 25, 2011
by Dr K K Aggarwal
Heart Care Foundation of India
It is compulsory in the West to report errors related to medical practice or treatment. Unfortunately, there is no such policy in our country. The Ministry of Health should come out with a policy where doctors can directly enter medical errors on the website. It does not involve disclosure of the name of the doctor or of the patient. This was stated by Padma Shri and Dr B C Roy National Awardee Dr K K Aggarwal, President, Heart Care Foundation of India.
Medical errors do not mean medical negligence. Medical accidents and medical adverse events are part and parcel of medical treatment all over the world.
Dr. Aggarwal said that 80% of medical errors are related to medical prescriptions. One should avoid giving prescriptions on phone. Every time a patient comes to a doctor the doctor must match the drugs prescribed by the doctor and drugs taken by the patients. He cited few common and possible errors as below.
1. One should never write .3 mg, but write 0.3mg, as .3mg can be mistaken as 3mg.
2. One should never write 3.0mg as it can be mistaken as 30mg. Always write 3 mg.
3. Instead of writing 'U' write 'Units' as 'U' can be mistaken as '0'. For example, 4U of insulin may be misread as 40 or 44, which may have drastic implications for the patient.
4. Then there are errors that may occur when prescribing over phone. There are drugs whose names sound alike. For example, Isoprin can be mistaken as Isoptin. Artamin can be misheard as Arkamin.
5. Names of some drugs can be misunderstood on the phone. For example, Amlopres-AT can be written down as Amplopres 80; Drotin can be understood as ‘Do Teen’ (2-3).
6. Some drugs look alike, they may have similar shapes or colour or may have similar looking packaging. This can cause the patient to choose the wrong drug, a serious error.
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