Practice of Medical Error Detection and Incident Handling in Selected Public Hospitals, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2024-05-26
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Medical error is an emerging global public health problem that poses a threat to patient safety. Health care providing institutions and the health care system should be competent enough to detect incidents of medical error. Patient safety efforts are increasing at global and national level. However, claims for medical errors are rising over time. In Ethiopia, the rate of medical error claims are increasing, and hospitals are where most error claims happen.
Objectives: To explore the practice of medical error detection and incident handling in the selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Method: Explorative qualitative study was conducted with a case study approach. The study was done in selected public Hospitals in Addis Ababa. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling method based on work experience and information richness. Data was then collected through an In-depth interviews and Key informant interviews. A total of eleven interviews were made with health care providers from the service delivery, office of the Chief Clinical Director, and office of Quality Management. Data was then, analyzed thematically using Open code software.
Results: A total of eleven health care professionals were recruited for this study. Majority of participants were physicians of whom half of them were specialists and subspecialists. Lack of common understanding about medical errors among health care providers, employment of methods incapable to detect medical errors, the blame culture, and lack of medical error specific reporting system were found to be system related factors that made medical errors far from detection while perceived fear of punishment being as individual related factor.
Conclusions: Medical errors are poorly detected and error incidents are reported haphazardly. The way medical errors were handled from the investigation to the corrective measures, found to have a counterproductive effect on care providers. Attention should be given for system factors to improve detection capacity, encourage incident reporting, and to learn from errors.
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Detection and Incident Handling