Personnel related complications

As previously mentioned, it has been demonstrated that a decreased nurse staffing is associated with an increased risk of complications in patients in the ICU. Likewise less skilful and knowledgeable personnel are nowadays employed for cost containment and thus increasing the probability of human errors.

• If a patient has a bad outcome due to human error, it may constitute deviation from the standard of care. 

Examples of such errors are:

• Lab errors, specimens or samples taken incorrectly
• Samples or Images lost
• Test, samples ,or paperwork mixed up with that of another patient
• Blood bank cross matching errors
• Medication errors
• Allergic reaction
• Orders – not carried out, misread, not written
• Incorrect patient identification
• Wrong test/procedure ordered
• Failure /delay to diagnose; misdiagnose