Approaches for reducing medical errors and increasing patient safety : TRM, quality and 5 Qs method

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the shortcoming of a health-care institution to reduce the medical errors (MEs) which lead to the increase of physicians and patients relationship. Design/methodology/approach – Total relationship management (TRM) emphasizes the totality and the holistic nature of a relationship. It includes five generic quality dimensions (5 Qs) and measurements. 5 Qs will be used in the paper to identify the shortcoming of a health-care institution, identify and reduce the MEs which lead to the increase of the patient safety and doctors and patients satisfaction. Findings – The paper shows that there is a need for a health-care system response to error that moves the system toward being as fail-Zero tolerant and failsafe as possible rather than one that blames the clinician who may have erred. Research limitations/implications – The proposed 5 Qs model consists of some generic integrated dimensions. Practical implications – Teamwork practice, holistic view and integration of different competences and recourses will allow the support of information systems, the collection of evidence about care, and efforts for continuous quality improvement. Social implications – This research attempts to contribute to the previous academic studies and knowledge in quality of medical and health care by reducing the MEs and increasing patient safety. Originality/value – The 5 Qs can be used as diagnostic instrument to identify and understanding of how MEs and AEs occur and suggest prevention strategies to reduce patient severity and dissatisfaction. The main goal of such prevention strategies is to reduce the probability of error occurrence and increase the probability that the error would be remedied before an inadvertent injury occurred.