Evaluation Of Patient Safety Systems

The Joint Commission focuses on certain goals each year. For patient safety and positive outcomes, hospitals are required to follow certain standards. National Patient Safety Goals were established in 2002 to help identify areas of concern with patient safety. This group is made up by a panel of experts including nurses, doctors, pharmacists and many other healthcare professionals. They advise the Joint Commission on how to address these different patient safety issues. Two goals to be discussed are improving the accuracy of patient identification and medication safety. To improve patient

Mulloy, D. F., & Hughes, R. G. (2008). Patient safety & quality: an evidence-based handbook for nurses. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2678/

"To continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value” (Jointcommission.org, 2015). These requirements are regimented in the National Patient Safety Goals and are enforced via surveys and internal inspections to ensure that healthcare institutions abide by the safety mechanisms put in place to facilitate the optimal patient outcomes and environments.

Over time the health care industry has become more complex. Health care is rapidly evolving and continuing to complicate our delivery of care, which in turn has the same effect on quality of care. This steady evolution and change results in nursing shortages and an increase in the prevalence of errors being made. In hopes of preventing these errors and creating safe and high quality patient care, with the focus on new and improved ways of thinking, The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative was developed. The QSEN focuses on the following competencies: patient-centered care, quality improvement, safety, and teamwork and collaboration. Their initiatives work to prepare and develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are necessary to make improvements in the quality and safety of health care systems (Qsen.org, 2014).

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

The Joint Commission has instituted a number of goals nationally; the aim is to improve patient’s safety. The goals selected look at areas that are of concern in the healthcare industry particularly how it affect patients safety and make recommendations how to reduce if not eradicated these. The Joint Commission is the governing body that accredited hospitals and other health care organizations. The two hospitals that this paper will be comparing, using the goals and criteria recommended by the Joint commission, is Holy Cross Hospital located at 1500 Forest Glen Road, Silver Spring, MD and Shady Grove Hospital situated at, 9901 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD.

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.

Safety and quality are two different terms used interchangeably. Patient safety depends upon the minimization of the undesired incidences while quality is achieved by reaching at anticipated endpoint. In order to successfully access and implement safety and quality culture, this is necessary to learn from deficiencies and encouraging safety science education. In fact, this is very necessary to measure quality as it helps to capture any inconsistency in the treatment processes provided by healthcare organizations. Both focus on person centred and informatics care that include the involvement of health practitioners, patients and consumers to avoid anxiety, frustration or any cause of delays in appropriate treatment. Safety and quality of care is very important to improve clinical practice and health outcome, reduce risks in the delivery of

2012 Joint Commission Patient Safety Goals. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2014, from Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center: www.lovell.fhcc.va.gov/about/2012PatientSafetyGoals.pdf

Increasingly, healthcare organizations are becoming aware of the importance of transforming organizational culture in order to improve patient safety. According to IOM transformation to patient safety is challenging but pertinent and should be embrace by HCO’s. Developing the right culture for HCO’s is key. This can help achieve the overall mission and goal of the HCO and make employees aware of what to do (Daft2013). The benefits can be categorized into social, health, and business.

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)

Issues related to a lack of patient safety have been going on for a lot of years now. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, there has been a national emphasis on cultivating patient safety. Patient safety is a global issue, that touches countries at all levels of expansion and is one of the nation's most determined health care tests. According to the Institute of Medicine (1999), they have measured that as many as 48,000 to 88,000 people are dying in U.S. hospitals each year as the result of lapses in patient safety. Estimates of the size of the problem on this are scarce particularly in developing countries; it is likely that millions of patients worldwide could suffer disabling injuries or death every year due to unsafe medical care. Risk and safety have always been uninterruptedly been significant concerns in the hospital industry. Patient safety is a very much important part of our health care system and it really

The Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) toolkit was developed when the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and American Hospital Association (AHA) joined together to initiate a project to prevent healthcare associated infections in hospitals. The project was a national success due to CUSP. Its tools are used to assess the hospitals’ issues at the unit level. CUSP toolkit provides knowledge, materials and assessment tools to change the unit-based culture of behaviors and habits, in order to improve patient safety. There are five basic steps, involved in CUSP – 1. Educate staff in the science of safety. 2. Identify defects. 3. Engage executive leaders. 4. Learn from mistakes. 5. Implement teamwork tools.

Beside the healthcare organizations, other high-hazard industries were also considered essential to have a positive safety culture and that they should measure and report safety culture with standardized instruments to develop safety. The report also suggested that due to the multidimensional nature of safety culture and for a better understanding of the factors related to patient safety culture, we need further research, especially in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.(“WHO |

Human factors include organisational, environmental and job factors, and human and individual characteristics. These factors influence the behaviour at work which can influence people’s health and safety (Human Factors in Patient Safety Review of Topics and Tools, 2009). Work performance determines the quality and quantity of work expected from each employee. Acknowledgement of the relationship between human factors, work performance, patient safety and quality in healthcare can promote a positive work environment. This