Question

Healthcare professionals use root-cause analysis to look at medical errors in the healthcare system. Select all areas in which medical errors can be made.

surgery

medication

diagnosis

lab reports

equipment

Answer 1

All of them. Medical errors can occur in:
- surgery (wrong site, retained items, procedural mistakes),
- medication (wrong drug, dose, route, timing),
- diagnosis (delays, missed or incorrect diagnoses),
- lab reports (specimen mix-ups, reporting errors, misinterpretation),
- equipment (malfunction, improper use, inadequate maintenance).