Medical Abbreviations
How can eliminating abbreviations reduce errors?
In the medical profession, time is everything. To make documentation as expeditious as possible, a series of abbreviations have been accepted in records. This has been considered an acceptable practice as much as calling a registered nurse an "RN." The problems occur when people are unclear about the abbreviations mean or if a set of letters can have more than one meaning. For example, there is the abbreviation "CA" which means cancer and then "Ca" which is calcium. Another example is "a" which can mean both "artery" and "before" (Medical 2011-page 1). It is very easy to misread abbreviations when medical staff is in a hurry. Imagine the problem if a "q.w." which is take weekly was confused for a "q.v." which is take as one wishes. If the terms were written out rather than abbreviated, these potentially dangerous situations could be...
The policy should ensure that a set of abbreviations was made and adopted by all medical facilities. In this way, one set of definitions cannot be isolated to one hospital. A patient transferred from one hospital to another would have a chart with abbreviations fully understood by the new staff because of this uniform system of abbreviations. In the modern moment, one hospital's set of abbreviations may not transfer the same meaning at another location. Take for example the abbreviation "LLL." At various hospitals, these letters can mean anything from left lower lid, to left lower lip, or even left lower lung (Specified 2008). It is imperative that when a patient goes to get aid that a medical person can read…
