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| LETTER TO EDITOR |
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| Year : 2022 | Volume
: 5
| Issue : 1 | Page : 49-50 |
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Errors and preventive measures of health-care systems during COVID-19 pandemic
Vida Zaroushani1, Farahnaz Khajehnasiri2
1 Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Research Institute for Prevention of Non-Communicable Disease, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences; Department of Occupational Health Engineering, Faculty of Health, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran
2 Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| Date of Submission | 07-Sep-2021 |
| Date of Acceptance | 12-Nov-2021 |
| Date of Web Publication | 25-Feb-2022 |
Correspondence Address:
Farahnaz Khajehnasiri
Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran
Iran
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | 4 |
DOI: 10.4103/shb.shb_92_21
How to cite this article:
Zaroushani V, Khajehnasiri F. Errors and preventive measures of health-care systems during COVID-19 pandemic. Asian J Soc Health Behav 2022;5:49-50 |
Dear Editor,
With the COVID-19 death toll being on a rise in some countries, Managers must be aware of the immense mounts of stress that workers endure. Human factors such as stress, load of duties, and fatigue can lead to an increase in medical errors. These effects are significantly more visible in health workers who face large number of COVID-19 patients. Safety of these health workers can be improved by workplace assessment by mean hazard identification. Health-care workers are constantly exposed to different risk factors in workplace such as excessive fatigue due to long working hours without adequate rest.[1] Hence, assessment of their quality of working life is of importance, especially in pandemics. Working on the frontline is a risk factor for worse mental health outcomes and burnout in this group.[2] All these human factors and also a lack of knowledge can lead to an increase in medical errors. It is therefore necessary to control these errors by taking safety measures that focus on reducing the severity, frequency of occurrence, or both. Some common preventive measures are:
- Virtual safety training courses
- Performing tasks as a team
- Specialist assessment of employees return to work after a long absence[3]
- Focus on the task and avoid situations that interfere with a person's concentration such as use more accurate devices[4]
- Providing regular breaks regularly reporting medicine errors
- Reducing the physical and mental load of health workers and reducing the incidence of medical errors by using administrative controls, including increasing the number of staff by volunteer workforce, which leads to reduced work hours, tasks, and specialization of affairs[5]
- Presence of a supervisor and safety officer to manage critical tasks and solve possible
- Problems
- Employers should pay attention to the proportion of workload for each person. On-call workers should be ready to answer and solve their problems
- Sometimes, social distance can create dangerous situation for employees that cannot hear each other well. Overlapped barriers or a microphone can be used to mediate this
- Teleworking also causes problems for workers, musculoskeletal complaints and fatigue can lead to happen errors (in a suitable workstation, it can be 60 min work and 5–10 min rest).
In conclusion, managers should identify key workers who are responsible for important tasks and alternatives people so if they get sick, the job can be entrusted to other worker with similar skills. It is necessary to implementation of retraining programs for requalification of workers that return to work after an extended time rest after infection to COVID-19. Moreover, managers should try to minimize risk factors in the workplace by preformation of a systematic risk assessment such as job safety it can be argued that managers in countries have a critical role in improving the health and safety status and reducing the burden of errors, especially during the crisis. Paying attention to this will lead to better disease and occupational accident control.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
| References | |  |
| 1. | Olashore AA, Akanni OO, Fela-Thomas AL, Khutsafalo K. The psychological impact of COVID-19 on health-care workers in African countries: A systematic review. Asian J Soc Health Behav 2021;4:85.  [Full text] |
| 2. | Talaee N, Varahram M, Jamaati H, Salimi A, Attarchi M, Kazempour Dizaji M, et al. Stress and burnout in health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic: Validation of a questionnaire. Z Gesundh Wiss 2020:1-6. doi: 10.1007/s10389-020-01313-z. |
| 3. | Fadel M, Salomon J, Descatha A. Coronavirus outbreak: The role of companies in preparedness and responses. Lancet Public Health 2020;5:e193. |
| 4. | Zaroushani V, Khajehnesiri F. Nurse robots: A necessity in the nursing care system during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Occup Health Epidemiol 2020;9:130-2. |
| 5. | Khajehnasiri F, Zaroushani V, Poursadeqiyan M. Macro ergonomics and health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Work 2021;69:713-4. |
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