Assignment:
The following survey questions have been established for a medical errors and patient safety business research paper:
1) How many patients were treated in your hospital (or nursing home, office, etc?) in the past year (you could change this time period to month, week, etc.)?
(2) How many patients died while in the hospital in the past year?
(3) Of those deaths, how many were attributed to medical error?
Prescriptions:
(4) How many prescriptions were filled in the past year?
(5) Of those prescriptions, how many were filled incorrectly?
(6) Of the prescriptions that were filled incorrectly, how was the mistake noticed? How many were found due to patient injury or death? patient noticed? health care worker noticed? other?
(7) Does a pharmacist round with physicians?
Surgery:
(8) How many surgeries have been performed in your hospital in the past year?
(9) How many of those surgeries had an adverse reaction or an undesired outcome?
(10) Of the undesired outcomes, how many were preventable?
Error Prevention:
(11) Has your hospital taken any steps in the past year to reduce medical errors?
(12) If so, has the error rate decreased?
(13) What is your hospital's policy on patient notification when a medical error has been made?
(14) Does your hospital use a computer system or a hand-written chart system?