FREE Basic CPHRM Question and Answers
Infusion pumps are used in hospitals to administer intravenous drugs. These pumps do, however, occasionally fail, therefore a nurse is tasked with checking on them from time to time. Is this an effective tactic?
Explanation:
This is a poor method because it relies on one employee's attention to detail. Even the most competent workers occasionally make errors, forget details, or lose focus. Never should a critical procedure rely on a person to continually recall to complete a task. Instead, a system of automated alerts should notify numerous personnel when a task needs to be completed.
Blood transfusions at a hospital have been shown to be 99.7% error-free. Which function can be used to calculate the approximate number of blood transfusions necessary before an error is made?
Explanation:
The number of blood transfusions that are likely to be carried out before an error is made could be calculated using a negative binomial distribution. It is useful to know how many successful events are expected to happen before a failure using negative binomial distributions. This type of statistical analysis is beneficial for tracking errors' tendencies.
Anesthesiologists are given less time than normal to inspect the infusion device that will administer drugs to a patient after surgery since the facility is busy. The on-site medical staff must work furiously to save the patient's life when the machine breaks down. What sort of example is that?
Explanation:
This question's situation serves as an illustration of latent error. A latent error is one that was made during setup or programming that has unfavorable effects down the road. Because they occur remotely from negative occurrences, these kinds of mistakes are exceedingly challenging to spot. The machine's malfunction and the anesthesiologist's meager time allotment in this case both exhibit latent error. A bad occurrence frequently results from a combination of latent faults. To find and eradicate the sources of hidden mistakes, hospital administrators must take an objective and comprehensive approach to operations.
The same labels are used by a hospital for all of its prescriptions, however because the labels are the identical, they do not fit on the smallest containers, therefore staff members must cut and paste the labels in a specific way to fill the prescriptions. What kind of example is this?
Explanation:
This question's scenario serves as an illustration of extra processing. Extra processing is incompatible with the lean mindset. When a lean manager notices a circumstance similar to the one in this question, he will start working to fix it right away. In this situation, the hospital would be smart to implement a labeling system suitable for all of its containers. The extra processing mentioned in this issue may induce medication errors in addition to the evident addition of more effort.
Before it leaves the pharmacy, a prescription must be revised due to the doctor's illegible handwriting. Which statement is accurate?
Explanation:
The prescription shouldn't depend on the pharmacy's profit in this situation. Only those procedures that are finished without the need for reworking or repair are taken into account as parts of yield in lean service supply. Implementing lean services aims to increase yields by lowering errors and defects. Healthcare facilities frequently make mistakes because of poor handwriting, which has prompted many of them to standardize notation and implement labeling or bar code systems. The FDA does not require that these mistakes be reported.
Why does the Healthcare Quality Improvement Act grant legal immunity and anonymity to peer review procedures in the healthcare industry?
Explanation:
In order to promote physician engagement, the Healthcare Quality Improvement Act grants anonymity and legal immunity for healthcare peer-review processes. The American Medical Association stated that without these requirements, physicians would be hesitant to help when the law was being created.
Why is it simple to gather data on medication-related errors?
Explanation:
Because the use of prescription medications is widespread and well-documented, it is simple to survey medication-related errors. There is a lot of literature on the subject as a result. Many other mistakes kinds, however, are still mostly unstudied. For instance, latent errors resulting from inadequate training or incorrect equipment calibration are significantly less likely to be examined. Nevertheless, it is crucial to keep researching medication-related errors because they are both costly and widespread, in addition to being highly common. There is now a push to create a standardized mechanism for reporting drug errors, which will allow for the aggregation of statistics on a broader scale.