Misadventures in Health Care: Inside Stories presents an alternative approach to attributing the cause of medical error solely to the health care provider. That alternative, the systems approach, pursues why an incident occurs in terms of factors in the context of care that affect the care provider to induce an error. The basis for this approach is the fact that an error is an act, an act is behavior, and behavior is a function of the person interacting with the environment. Eleven vignettes illustrate the importance of the systems approach by describing health care incidents from the perspective of the care providers--the perspective that can identify the factors that actually affect the provider. These stories provide general readers with opportunities to apply their knowledge in analyzing incidents to identify error-inducing factors.
This book is important reading for policymakers, researchers and practitioners in law and in all medical specialties, and professionals in the social sciences, human factors, and engineering. In addition to sensitizing the reader to the importance of contextual factors in error,
Misadventures in Health Care is a case study reference to supplement texts in professional schools such as law and medicine, as well as the full range of academic disciplines. It also is important reading for the general public because it presents an approach for addressing a very pressing social problem-- that of misadventures in health care.
This book shares about 6 different (real) clinical cases in which serious errors have left both patients and health-care providers victimized. For example, one case talks about a general surgical procedure that ends in a patient with a severe ureter, a 2nd-degree burn, a wound infection (due to lack of antibiotic administration), and $75,000 in recovery bills. It breaks down the fundamental aspects of human error in each case and supports each with discussion and research evidence. This would be a great read for pre-meds like myself who are interested in becoming more aware of the health care industry, for medical students and medical ethics courses/reading, and for health care practitioners. It isn't very lengthy but this author does write a book that was published in 1994 I believe with a similar theme which is longer.
