Enraged Actor Sheds Light on Medical Errors
Just last week actor Dennis Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, found out exactly what happened to their twin babies mere days after they were born. They have recently made headlines because they are infuriated to learn of the details surrounding the medical error months after the initial incident.
A preliminary report detailed that the Quaid's newborns were given doses of heparin (a high-risk blood thinner) 1,000 times stronger than what was prescribed. However, last Wednesday a second report showed that the children were actually given two vials containing 10,000 units per milliliter of heparin--or 2,000 times stronger than what was prescribed.
How the hospital tackled the issue of medical errors was regrettably left off the front page--and that's something that shouldn't be ignored. In this case, the hospital took steps to review all policies and procedures involving high-risk medication and provided more training to its staff.
Unfortunately medical errors happen too often. So, to help health care providers reduce mistakes, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) designed 17 free, publicly available toolkits that can be adapted to most health care settings.
Released in December, the toolkits focus on an array of issues, including identifying high-risk practices and reducing medication errors or other patient harms. The following are examples of different toolkits:
- The Re-Engineered Hospital Discharge "Project RED" toolkit.
- The Medications at Transitions and Clinical Handoffs "MATCH" toolkit.
- The Preventing Venous Thromboembolisms in the Hospital and the Interactive Venous Thromboembolism Safety Toolkit for Providers and Patients toolkits.
- The ED Pharmacist as a Safety Measure in Emergency Medicine toolkit.
For more information and a complete listing of the 17 toolkits, visit http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/pips.