Compare Contrast In The Performance Of Healthcare Systems

Crossing the Quality Chasm defines safe as, “avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them” (p. 5). Ideally, this aim is to help protect patients from harm, improve on safe patient-care practices, and utilize the most up to date evidence-based medicine for better outcomes.

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare result in thousands of deaths in the United States.

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

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

Healthcare has progressed immensely throughout human civilization. From dancing to scare away evil spirits, to growing living organs in laboratories. No matter how advanced or archaic the treatment, we all as humans strive for the continuation of our life. As populations grew, organized healthcare delivery became a critical component to a healthy society. Many approaches to delivering healthcare to a large population have been created, but one variable remains constant in any solution to healthcare. Healthcare costs money. A lot of money. And someone has to pay, but where the differences between

It is critical in today’s health care field to avoid harm and ensure that patient safety in health care environment, especially with the attention of medical mistakes little is known about the importance of avoidable harm to public. The mistakes that happen in the healthcare setting are rarely the fault of individual workers, but usually the result of problems within the system that they work.

“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

Patient safety one of the driving forces of healthcare. Patient safety is defined as, “ the absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of healthcare or as the prevention of errors and adverse events caused by the provision of healthcare rather than the patient’s underlying disease process. (Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi, Jasper, &Turunen, 2013)”. It was just as important in the past as it is day. Our healthcare field continues to strive to make improvement toward safer care for patients across the country.

The IOM’s report “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System” shocked the health care world and made change necessary. “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System” released information that reported that tens of thousands of Americans were dying each year from errors (IOM, 1999). Patient safety moved to the forefront in healthcare like never before and directives were discussed to put quality as a

Risk management and legal concerns play a major role in how nurses interact with their patients and go about their day to day work tasks. Patient safety has become one of the primary focuses in healthcare organizations around the world. “As a result of seminal reports such as To Err is Human, The Quality in Australian Healthcare Study and An Organization with a Memory, the international healthcare management agenda is currently concerned with reducing the risks to which patients are exposed in care settings” (Kirwan & Matthews, 2012).

Hughes (2008) quoting from the , the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality handbook stated that “many view quality health care as the overarching umbrella under which patient safety resides”. Friedman, Encinosa, Jiang & Mutter (2009) found that “safety events that result in hospital readmissions lead to hefty a financial burden on the institution”. In addition they believe that if more attention is given to address and “ assess the full extra cost of safety events and the factors influencing the rate of safety events, that strategies could be developed for health plans to improve incentives for safety” Friedman, Encinosa, Jiang & Mutter (2009). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) considers patient safety “indistinguishable from the

As a country we are facing currently facing a problem based on health care. Every country has their own way of doing things, but which way makes the most sense? Statistics show that Canada’s health care system is working for them, but will it work for the United States? Ezekial J. Emanuel, Holly Dressel, and together, Karen Davis, Cathy Shoen, Katharine Shea, and Kristine Haran, all address possible solutions to this problem. While Emanuel feels that America’s system is sufficient, Dressel, Davis, Shoen, Shea, and Haran believe there are better options. These authors evaluate the different systems based on quality, cost, and accessibility.

The performance of the United States health care system on both cost and quality has long been a subject of controversy with some arguing that it’s the best in the world, but others, increasingly well-armed with international comparisons, making the case that health care in the US is consistently underperforming, particularly considering the relative level of health care expenditures. Perhaps less arguable is the fact that we have not fully realized the hope that a common quality measurement and reporting system would galvanize and accelerate broad improvement, both at the level of institutions as well as health systems. There has been notable progress in a limited range of outcomes, such as cardiovascular mortality and central line-associated bloodstream infections, but improvement in US health care remains spotty and slow in all aspects of the six Institute of Medicine (IOM) dimensions at the national and state levels. , The persistence of large disparities in quality of care and dismal progress in closing equity gaps is especially discouraging. Much more is needed and should be possible if we can more effectively link quality measurement and improvement.

Each year between 210,000 and 440,000 patients go to the hospital for care suffers some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death (Allen). Knowing that so many patients go into a hospital and never leave due to mistakes made by a physician or nurse is extremely sickening. Physician and nurses have to sometimes slow down and double or even triple check information that have entered into patients chart or doses they are about to administer to an patient. I know it is hard sometimes to slow down because there are so many patients that needed to be attended to at any given moment. Hospitals now are becoming very crowded and sometimes the patients are in pain as well as inpatient. Nurses and physician are trying to do their best to ensure that they touch bases with

In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)