Mistakes will always happen in any workplace, and hospitals are no different. Doctors and nurses are humans, after all, and humans make mistakes every day.
Yet, there are some errors that are so avoidable that medical authorities term them “never events.” Unfortunately, these inexcusable errors do still happen, and when they do, they can cause massive harm to the affected patient.
There are 29 different types of never events
The National Quality Forum came up with 29 categories into which they could insert all these incidents. Then they put those 29 events into seven categories. They did this to better understand them and make it easier to find ways to stop them from happening. Here are those seven categories with some examples:
- Surgical or procedural events: Operating on the wrong body part or wrong patient, or leaving surgical items inside the body.
- Product or device events: Giving contaminated drugs or using the wrong equipment.
- Patient protection events: Insufficient concern for the safety of the patient leading to them injuring themself or being injured by someone else.
- Care management events: Medication errors, losing an extracted body part.
- Environmental events: Burns or injury due to improper restraint. Inserting the wrong lines into a patient causing them to receive the wrong substance, or failing to ensure adequate supply causing them to receive air.
- Radiologic events: Harm due to metal objects during an X-ray.
- Criminal events: Abduction, assault or someone impersonating a doctor or nurse.
If you are injured during hospital treatment, proving it was a never event could help you to claim compensation. As these events usually have devastating consequences, the financial ramifications could be huge.
