H.C. Quality:Patient Perceptive

Explain Why or Why not the perceptive of the patient is the most important determinate of an adverse event.

I believe that the patient perceptive is important in determining an adverse event, however I don't believe it is the most important determinate. The text defines an adverse event as a patients experience of harm or injury from a medical intervention. The text further explains how there are different types of adverse events. The different types include, ones that are a result of an error and are consider preventable, and those that are not a result of an error but occur as a result of a careful planned and executed medical intervention. The later type is out of the control of the medical interventionist and results as an unpreventable consequence of the medical intervention itself. Patent's perspective is not one that is backed by medical knowledge and clinical experience and therefore is bias. Patients are emotional while receiving any type of medical intervention. Feelings of fear, anxiety, discomfort, pain, discrimination, anger, and denial can typical cloud the judgement of a patient. Patients may feel differently after having a procedure done and can contribute the abnormal feeling to an adverse event, when really it may just be a side effect of the recovery process. Trained medical professionals or other knowledgeable third parties should analyze the process and procedure to determine whether an adverse event has taken place. The analyze should be conducted using guidelines which are organization wide and widely accepted in the medical community. Evidence based medicine can help determine whether a preventable error may have caused an adverse event or whether a unpreventable adverse event has occurred. Patients are not qualified to analyze these types of situations or to conclude whether an adverse event has occurred.
Patients should however be included in the process. Communication should be open and flowing between the patients and those involved in the medial intervention. If the patient is not able to articulate their feelings after a medical intervention, then an adverse event may not be discovered. When this happens, an error can be repeated and harm can be brought upon other patients.