Patient Safety: A Positive Change in the Healthcare System Essay

Hospital patients who deteriorate physiologically are often frequently mismanaged despite signs of deterioration exhibited by patients were serious enough to warrant clinical intervention (Australian Commission of Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2010; Cooper et al., 2011a; DeVita et al., 2010). There is an increasing need for medical staff to recognize and respond to early clinical deterioration cues to prevent poor patient outcomes and ensure high-quality care. Adult deterioration detection systems have been developed to improve morbidity and mortality (Hillman et al., 2005), which ultimately aids early identification to minimize the occurrence of unanticipated death

Current healthcare practices today have largely been influenced by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 1999 report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Healthcare System. This report delineated many weaknesses in the practice of medicine regarding the safety of patients within the healthcare industry. This report has increased public awareness regarding the need for transparency around reporting serious safety events as well as the need to implement best practices in an effort to increase patient safety. Additionally, Medicare initiatives support the need for increased quality of care as hospitals will suffer financial loss due to declining reimbursement for patient. Patient satisfaction and safety are imperative in order for care to be provided. One effort which can help support improvements in patient safety and quality of care is through hourly or intentional rounding on patients. This rounding practice amplifies the nurse-patient relationship, provides continuity of care, increased safety, and service excellence. Intentional rounding or rounding with a purpose, can be a success, as long as nursing staff understand the full implications and the potential for positive outcomes, and take complete ownership of the rounding initiative. Leadership and nurses need to work collaboratively and be cognizant of each other’s role pertaining to the delivery of care regarding this practice. The purpose of this research is to depict the importance of hourly rounding as a

The National Patient Safety Goals were first developed in 2002 by the Joint Commission. The goals are established to help guide medical organizations to focus on which areas of patient safety need improving (Hudson 2016). The first set of goals were released and put in motion in 2003, prior to 2003 there were no policies or goals for an organization to set their sights on (Hudson 2016 page 2). A panel of experts advises the Joint Commission on the development of new goals or the updating of old ones. The panel is called the Patient Safety Advisory Group and is made up of nurses, risk managers, clinical engineers, and physicians (Hudson 2016). The National Patient Safety Goals have specific goals geared toward the type of medical organizations such as a critical access hospital, home care, behavioral health, and long term care services to name a few (Hudson 2016 page 2). The National Patient Safety Goals help protect patients and make sure providers are practicing safely across the board.

Los Angeles, Doctor and founder John McLaughlin, came up with the idea to reduce health care costs and improve patient safety

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

Risk managers may choose a model of patient care necessitates a particular work design aimed at increasing coordination and opportunities for patient and staff input (Avgar, Givan & Liu, 2011). Questionnaires can be created, distributed and collected so that information can be

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

The National Patient Safety Goals were created in response to the IOM article, To Err is Human: Building Safer Health Systems. These goals were written to address patient safety and are tailored depending on the health care setting to which they are written for. They address system wide solutions rather than focusing on whom or how the error was made. Medical errors have been noted as being the 8th leading cause of death in the U.S. with the most frequent of these errors being medication related (Johnson, K., Bryant, C., Jenkins, M., Hiteshew, C., & Sobol, K. 2010). Therefore a great focus on these goals is needed across the health care continuum. The goals are updated and amended on a regular basis using evidence-based research, in response to areas with high errors in patient safety.

This essay sets out to discuss the importance of comprehensive and accurate assessment on a registered nurses’ ability to make excellent clinical decisions. It will examine what factors can change a nurses’ capability to be aware of, and act on abnormal assessment findings. As well as assessment being part of the nursing process that is used in every day nursing, it is also a critical part of patient safety (Higgins, 2008). Assessment findings are used to determine what needs to be done for the patient next. Early warning scoring systems currently exist to aid in the early detection of patient deterioration (Goldhill, 2005). The rationale for the use of these systems is that early recognition of deterioration in the vital signs of a

This paper, will discuss the National Patient Safety Goal NPSG 0.7.06.01 entitled “ Use proven guidelines to prevent infection of the urinary tract that are caused by catheter” (The Joint Commission, 2015). It will identify reasons why this National Patient Safety Goal was chosen as well as the type of organizations that utilize urinary catheters. It will look into financial implications of implementing educational process versus the hospital cost of Catheter-Associated Urinary Infections (CAUTI). The Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) will demonstrate method on how to gather data, design educational tool, implement standard practice and create a committee by collaborating with other health care discipline. Effectiveness of the educational process will be evaluated through data collection. Finally, future health care delivery implications will be explored.

There are 440,000 people a year that die from a preventable variety of mistakes that are made in hospitals, which comes out to a little over 1,000 deaths a day, and is the number three cause of death behind cancer, and heart disease (hospitalsafetyscore). According to a group that rates hospitals named The Leapfrog Group a nonprofit watchdog group that grades hospitals for safety, (leapfrog) a majority of these deaths are very avoidable and are most of the time simple mistakes. Errors in Hospitals are a broad issue that gets hundreds of thousands of people killed every year; for the most part, they are preventable and are caused by overtesting, overdiagnosis, overtreatment, non-reporting, and lack of oversight, though there are ways to prevent

Throughout the course of Health Information 371, we have looked at various tools that are used or could be used in the field to help design, build, and implement systems. These tools explored concepts that were mostly related to the medical standpoint on how to diagnose patient’s through decision-making techniques. This helps the health professional make an accurate diagnosis based off of evidence and not speculation. Within the Health Information field, as informatics specialists we need to consider all of these techniques when designing the systems, creating policies, and updating the servers. Having knowledge on these tools will assist us when creating technologies, which will give health professionals all the necessary techniques to give the patient the best possible care available. Four tools that I believe will have a significant potential to affect my approach while practicing

More recently, early warning systems have been developed in an effort to recognise the at-risk patient who may be deteriorating

These tools are all reliable, especially in the bedside nursing. Being able to know the patient and the current vital signs are crucial in determining higher care may be needed. By implementing a Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) can progressively treat a patient who may be deteriorating (Kyriacos, & Jordan 2011). The scoring is