Awareness and avoidance of error in health care

Abstract

Errors in Health Care are shown to occur at increasing rates in proportion to the new knowledge, the technological and communication display used in controlling disease and human health impairment. Medical publications and reports, as those coming from allied professions devoid to health care, give plenty information of causes, mechanisms, tendencies, most privileged effects and consequences, classification, characteristics and impact of these issues on the progress of diseases involved and the way it affects the patient - professional relations. These aspects have been the main interest of numerous authors in the pertinent scientific literature. Instead of that focus, we committed our search to look over the errors raised in the field because missed understandings on the significance and the proper diagnosis of errors in health care, and the probability and ways to solve the dilemmas imposed by assigning responsibilities to each participant or the working team involved in the alluded contingency. We also address some of the judicial aspects derived and defined to clarify the legal implications of these actions and the interpretation of the ethic climate raised by the feeling of harm that follows transgression in the professional - patient virtual contract. Finally we comment on the need to restore the high values of the professional endeavour to the patients’ requirements and the dignity of the health actions included under the frame of professionalism promoted by the ACP and other international medical societies of internal medicine and bestowed to the personal responsibility of the sanitary agent.