Caring For Patients And Helping Their Safety

Patient safety is number one in hospitals. Every staff member that comes into contact with a patient should always have the question, “Will the patient be safe?” in the back of

For the most part, hospitals are places where one comes for healing and it is place where our clients should feel safe and away from harm. Nurses have an important role as a patient advocate and are to provide all clients with safe, compassionate, and quality care at all times. Nonetheless, the hospital can also be a dangerous place for inpatients. It is a foreign environment to clients and there may be alterations in their medical condition in regards to their physical and/or mental status. With this said, there is a need to improve upon how we care for our clients, especially those who are at most risk for various incidents.

Effective communication is crucial aspect of nursing yet too often is placed low on the priority list, especially at shift change. Information related to the care of patients is frequently disseminated at a crowded, noisy nurse station with several nurses rushing to leave and others attempting to get the information necessary to plan care and limit the constant distractions. It is this interaction that allows for information vital patient safety information to be communicated including the acuity of patients.

In this task I will be describing how health and safety legislation, policies and procedures promotes the safety of individuals in a Hospital. Quality care is an important issue for both health care workers and their partners. Government continue to work on implementing staffing law that will upgrade the medical systems. Hospitals are required to provide security for patients and staff. Mechanical equipment, housekeeping, administrative and food staff play important roles in preventing all environmental hazards. Safety concerns surrounding these hazards include injury, illness, disease exposure, disaster

Patient safety is of major concern in healthcare settings due to the preventable nature of events that sometimes lead to serious injury, and even death, for patients. This was catapulted to the forefront of healthcare delivery in 1999 when the Institute of Medicine wrote a scathing report; To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, that highlighted "the lack of safety for patients in healthcare organizations" (Ulrich and Kear 2014). The National Patient Safety

Learning about patient safety is a quality that all nurses and future nurses need to have instilled in them before they

The literature provided speaks of the nurse’s responsibility in creating a safe environment for the patient and a healthy work environment for individuals of the organization. Part of providing safe and competent care to patients is for the RN to ensure that she is clinically capable of providing care at the skill level necessary for an assignment, especially when she floats to other units. Otherwise, she must decline the duty to care for that patient, make it known to the charge nurse that the assignment is beyond her competency level, and ask for an alternative assignment that matches her skill set (California Board of Registered Nursing, 1998). In addition to knowing the nurse’s

Nurses are undoubtedly one of the most trusted professionals worldwide. Patients, family members, and doctors entrust nurses to provide the utmost quality care to sick individuals. Top priorities of all nurses are advocacy for their patients: including advocating for their physical health, holistic welfare, and utmost importantly, their safety. Patient safety will always be the top priority when providing patient care. The nurse’s responsibility during every patient encounter is to ensure that each patient under her care, receives no harm. As a direct result of the previous statement, it is crucial that every nurse knows their rights to refuse unsafe patient assignments, the process to refuse unsafe patient assignments, and the legal or ethical ramifications that could present themselves if proper judgement is not used. By understanding these rules, nurses not only achieve the responsibility of advocating for patient safety but also safeguard their careers and license.

Patient safety has always been an area of interest to me ever since I started to have an interest in the health care field. I think that patients are what keep organizations operating for years and years. Patients are our customers. Without them nurses, doctors, therapists, dieticians, nutritionists, to name a few, would be without a job. An organization needs to do everything possible to keep patients safe and reduce error. For example, if a patient goes to a hospital to get treatment and the staff keep making mistake after mistake then that patient isn 't going to want to return and will probably tell all his friends and family to not go to that hospital, which will result in a loss for the hospital and will probably have a bad

Patients want and expect to receive high quality care. Nurses want to provide the best care possible to their patients and like everybody else; want a pleasing job environment. Hospitals, on the other hand, are expected to provide a safe environment to patients, have enough nursing staff and remain profitable (Keller, Dulle, Kwiecinski, Altimier & Owens, 2013). The ultimate goal is to improve quality of care and patient safety across the United States; therefore, all the different interests of these major stakeholders should be taken into

Nurses’ are to ensure patient safety in all aspects of care provided. Sometimes, this is found outside of what is considered “actual” care, such as a physical assessments and administration of medications. Every day nurses’ are given assignments to follow, which includes which patients to take care of. What happens when this assignment is unsafe for all involved? Administrative Codes have been established by each state Board of Nursing to guide nurses’ in different situations. Safe Harbor Peer Review assists nurses to know how to handle an unsafe assignment.

“Organizations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures” (Stavrianopoulos, 2012, pg, 202). Communication and teamwork go hand and hand. An effective teamwork involves effective communication. No communication can lead to possible medical errors, whether the failure to communicate comes from the patient to the nurse or between the health care providers. Evidence based care is another factor which aids in safety. “Healthcare organizations that demonstrate evidence-based best practices, including standardized processes, protocols, checklists, and guidelines, are considered to exhibit a culture of safety” (Stavrianopoulos, 2012, pg, 203). Providing better safety means learning from the past mistakes. By understanding the root of the issue, which would then lead to learning how to improve the situation. Educational training about safety should be available for medical staff to attend and learn if there was to be any doubt in he or she’s mind. Patient centered care is another factor in providing safety. It focuses on the patient and their family. Helping patient’s and family be more active in the care of the health plan can lead to safer and better

Unlike physicians who spend approximately 30 to 45 minutes per day with a patient, the presence of nurses at the bedside is essential throughout the day. Apart from attending the patients, they regularly interact with families of the sick and other healthcare practitioners, such as physicians and pharmacists. Given their constant presence at the bedside, nurses play a critical role in maintaining patient safety by continuously observing patients for deterioration or improvement of health. They also help in the detection of medical errors, identification of near misses, and discovery of weaknesses that might be inherent in some systems (“Nursing and Patient Safety,” 2017). Since the role of nurses is crucial to the maintenance of patient safety, it is logical that increasing their workload is bound to adversely affect their ability to deliver quality work and safe services.

Errors pervade in our lives whether it is our home, in our workplace, or in our society. The effects of healthcare errors have impacted all our lives either directly or indirectly. Patient safety and quality care are at the core of healthcare system which strongly depends upon nurses. “To achieve goals in patient safety and quality, thereby improve healthcare, nurses must assume the leadership role. Nurses need to ensure that they and other healthcare providers center healthcare on patients and their families. Even though the quality and safety of healthcare is heavily influenced by the complex nature

On a daily basis there is a lot of thought and focus directed at these patients to assure they are getting quality medical care; you may have caught a medication error, made multiple phone calls, waited on hold for what seems like forever, waited on doctors, ran to another floor all to get a patient something they needed or wanted, or may the nurse noticed an important change in the patients status that could dramatically affect their outcome. Most times the patient does not see or not even know about these behind the scenes battles to ensure quality care. Conversely, most often, especially when considering a patient in the hospital setting, our perception is our reality. Patients often do not know the ins and outs of procedure and protocol and rely solely on their perception of the care they are receiving. Studies have shown that patients desire to be perceived and cared for as individuals. Lying in that bed waiting on a nurse for 20 minutes for pain medication may just translate into lack of care on the nurses’ part to the patient but in reality the nurse was caught in another room with a different patient with a situation he or she couldn’t walk away from. Often nurses are stressed which can also convey a certain harshness to patients. In other cases maybe the job has become so repetitive that the nurse