PREVENTING MEDICAL ERRORS

Course overview

This course meets the Florida statutory requirement for nurses and many other healthcare providers to complete a two-hour course on the prevention of medical errors. This course provides the learner with the knowledge and skills that are necessary to individually and collectively insure patient safety with the prevention of medical errors. The content of the course includes medical error statistics; current laws, regulations and National Patient Safety Goals relating to medical errors; factors that lead to medical errors, ways to recognize and correct and/or adapt practice to error and problem-prone situations; some processes, such as root cause analysis, reporting of sentinel events as well as near misses in a no blame environment; high-risk populations associated with medical errors, such as the sensory and cognitively impaired, infants, and children; and ways in which medical errors can be prevented. OBJECTIVES: At the conclusion of this course, the learner will be able to: 1. Describe the impact of medical errors, current laws, requirements, and regulations relating to patient safety and the prevention of medical errors. 2.Identify frequently encountered error-prone situations and high risk patient populations, in respect to medical errors. 3.Apply root cause analysis principles and procedures into one's role in the multidisciplinary team. 4.Detail ways with which medical errors and near misses can be eliminated, including the education of patients and family members.