What’s the importance of medical terminology to accurate patient charting?
QUESTION
What’s the importance of medical terminology to accurate patient charting?
What’s the importance of medical terminology to accurate patient charting?
ANSWER
Who is required to comprehend Medical Terminology?
If you work in an environment where a basic understanding of medical terms is required, whether you are a trainee GP, a nursing student, a social care worker, or a doctor’s receptionist, it is critical that you understand medical terminology.
In any of these roles, you may find yourself responding to an emergency, dialing 911, and administering life-saving care such as CPR or an epipen injection. It can be beneficial to understand medical terminology when dealing with emergency responders.
It will, however, be useful in your day-to-day duties, such as measuring medication doses for care home residents or responding to triage information from more senior medical staff.
What does medical terminology serve?
The goal of medical terminology is to standardize the language used by medical professionals. This language allows medical staff to communicate more effectively and simplifies documentation. This allows staff to save time by not having to explain complex medical conditions in plain English, allowing them to focus on patient care.
Another goal of Medical Terminology is to help reduce errors caused by poor communication or documentation. This ensures that staff can review a patient’s medical history quickly and accurately and begin diagnosing and treating them, while also being aware of any allergies the patient may have.
What is the significance of medical terminology?
Medical terminology can appear and sound complicated, but it’s critical to be able to break words down and understand their roots, prefixes, and suffixes to avoid misunderstandings or errors.
Mistakes and misunderstandings can be fatal, which is why medical terminology is so important. According to University of Manchester research from 2018, 237 million medical errors are made across the NHS each year, resulting in between 1,700 and 22,303 deaths.
71% of these errors occur in primary care settings. Multiple factors, including overworked staff, may be to blame for these errors, but having a solid understanding of medical terminology may be critical to preventing them.
Furthermore, the financial cost of medical errors can range from £60 to £6 million. Every healthcare worker must therefore play a role in ensuring that they understand medical terminology in order to avoid costing the NHS money.
What’s the importance of medical terminology to accurate patient charting?