Patient Safety

Each year medical errors cause more than 400,000 American deaths and at least 10-20 times that number experience serious harm. Researchers say that is equivalent to “three 747 airplanes crashing each day.” Medical errors rank as the third-leading cause of death in America. Therefore, patient safety is a national concern.

In our nursing practice, the nurse is required to hold essential skills of clinical judgment and be a patient advocate to ensure the safety and the well-being of the patient we care for. Patient safety can be compromised if nurses are not able to identify potential issues thru assessment of the patient's sign and symptoms. Patient safety can also be compromised if nurses are afraid to speak up for our patient and question what we think or feel are unsafe acts or orders.

One of the most critical factors which contribute to the number of preventable cases of healthcare harm is the culture of silence surrounding these cases. The fear of medical providers to report incidences is related to the possibility of punishment and liability due to a medical error (Discovery, 2010). The criminalization of some acts of medical error has resulted in job dismissal, criminal charges and jail time for some healthcare workers. This is despite the fact that the system they are working in helped to create the situation which led to the error in the first place. Human error, due to fatigue and system errors can result in deadly consequences, but by criminalizing the error it effectively shuts down the ability to correct the root problem. Healthcare workers, working at all levels within the medical system, can provide valuable input on how to improve the processes and prevent harm from occurring (Discovery, 2010).

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.

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.

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 the cost of implementing an educational process compared with the hospital cost of Catheter-Associated Urinary Infections (CAUTI). The Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) will demonstrate a method on how to gather data, design educational tool, implement standard practice and create a committee by collaborating with other health care disciplines. The effectiveness of the educational process will be evaluated through data collection and analysis. Finally, future health care delivery implications will be explored.

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.

According to the AHRQ: National Healthcare Quality Report (2009), the goal of quality of health is to help people stay healthy, learn to live with a disability or chronic disease, recuperate from an illness, and deal with dying and death. However, instead of delivering health care services that are safe, patient centered, equitable, and timely. Many patients do not receive needed care. When care is received many times it is unsafe or too late

The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority is a state agency founded by the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (MCARE) on 2002. Moreover, the agency creates the greatest database system for patient safety which known as Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System PA-PSRS. The system was developed by contract with Pennsylvania-based independent, ECRI, in partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a non-profit health services research agency, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), a Pennsylvania-based, non-profit health research organization and also a leading international information technology firm. Statewide compulsory for using PA-PSRS to report serious events in hospital, ambulatory surgical facilities and

It is a great opportunity to have this experience and to relate it with what we were being taught at school. There are a lot of connections in this project regarding patient safety. My safety project is a qualitative analysis of the difference between an allergy and sensitivity. The question still lies on how could the hospital staff manage allergy better?

Canada 's health care framework is intended to verify that all Canadians subjects have admittance to primary and other fundamental health administrations. It is basically a publicly financed protection framework regulated on a provincial or regional level. The Canada Health Act set by the national government guarantees a high caliber of consideration and denies doctors from charging patients for services officially administered by the legislature. Lately, the Canadian Health Industry has been anticipated as the most noticeably awful run industry in Canada. Canada’s healthcare system, Medicare, is in a crisis which is boosted by high costs, inconsistent quality, and inaccessibility to essential services. By 2011, 50% of all government spending was expected to be spent on healthcare in Ontario. Canada is ranked 5th internationally, for its per capita spending on healthcare (OECD, 2009). While the financial burden of providing healthcare to Canadians has increased 5.5% from 2008 to 2009, so do have the challenges associated with providing timely access to services for those in need . Unfortunately high waiting times have become a significant factor in restricting access to care for Canadians, especially in the emergency departments (CIHI, 2007).

Patient safety should be the number one goal for all healthcare workers. The Joint Commission has established National Patient Safety goals with recommended guidelines for use. Medical offices such as Curative Health have a responsibility to their patients to conform to these guidelines to prevent medical errors. Mary was fortunate that the wrong procedure performed on her caused no harm. Clear processes to identify patients and correctness of procedures should be established in the offices of Curative Health before to prevent future, possibly harmful,

This paper will discuss and explain how patient safety measure lead to cost savings. Second, will briefly define the Joint Commission’s role in healthcare. Third, reflect on future nursing role in healthcare and how will contribute to the patient safety. Lastly, explain the role of the chief nursing officer regarding patient safety.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the National Patient Safety Initiative, the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) have all developed regulatory and accreditation standards. For example, the JCAHO recommends that the surgical team pause and articulate the surgical site before commencing, to reduce medical error. Standards and accreditations include issues such as institutional hygiene and safety, as well as policy and procedure related to patient care.

In the 1966 film, Fantastic Voyage, world famous scientist Jan Benes suffers a stroke after being attacked on his way to the United State Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces (CMDF) lab. He possesses vital information that the US needs in order to defeat the Soviet Union, so they put Benes into a coma to prevent his brain from hurting itself further. Dr. Peter Duval, the lead surgeon, informs Mr. Benes’s Secret Service handler that the injured part of Benes’s brain is located in an area that they cannot operate on without fatally injuring the man. Their only option is to shrink an expert team of four engineers and scientists, along with Mr. Benes’s Secret Service handler, down to microscopic size and inject them through Jan Benes’s carotid artery