The National Patient Safety Goals Essay

The National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) program was created in 2002 by the Joint Commission to help organizations identify and address issues with patient safety. The people who determine what the safety goals are and how they should be addressed is called the Patient Safety Advisory Group. This group is composed of medical professionals who have “hands-on experience in addressing patient safety issues in a wide variety of health care settings.”(The Joint Commission, 2015) The first group of goals set by the advisory group were published Jan. 1, 2003. Currently, there are 6 hospital patient safety goals:

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).

National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs), established in 2002 by the Joint Commission, is to help accredited organizations address specific areas of concern in regard to patient safety ("Catheter-Associated," 2015). NPSG.07.06.01 Implement evidence-based practices to prevent indwelling catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) is a 2015 NPSG ("The Joint Commission," 2015). Our facility has 1.32 CAUTIs per 1000 device days (Carson, 2015). Decreasing CAUTIs can be achieved with a strict goal, addressing the financial implications, interdisciplinary collaboration, nursing leadership, a measurement tool, and discussing the future healthcare delivery methods.

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

healthcare organization accrediting bodies, and to maintain credibility with patients and peers alike, must adhere to the National Patient Safety Goals. As stated by Ulrich and Kear (2014), "Not only are nurses responsible for providing safe patient care, we are also responsible for creating an environment in which others can provide safe patient care, and for being the last line of defense when needed between the patient and potential harm. Having a deep understanding of patient safety and patient safety culture allows nurses to be the leaders we need to be in ensuring that our patients are always

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.

The Joint Commission is a nonprofit organization that focuses on improving the Healthcare system. They do this by regulating and evaluating health care organizations, helping them improve and give a more effective and safe care (The Joint Commission, 2012). The National Patient safety goals are ways in which the joint commission strives to improve the way health care is provided (The Joint Commission, 2012). Effective on January 1, 2012, the Joint commission came up with new ways to improve the Care of Medicare Based Long term Care facilities and provided Safety regulations to be followed. In order to better understand the impact that this regulations

All these priorities focus on the national patients safety goal as the most important in patient management and treatment, and guide the hospitals toward appropriate policies and protocols to follow and to minimize any possible mistakes or patients harm. I choose the priority focus area of Communication to discuss the current compliance status of our organization concentrating on the standards, which did not meet the Joint

• Effective—providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and overuse).

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.

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

The strategic goal formulated by the Patient Safety Committee of Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center is to achieve hundred percent patient safety by the year 2020. To achieve this challenging goal the management team has formulated specific short term and long-term goals. Short term goals include: providing training for staff on patient assistive devices, formulation of unit based patient safety committees, ongoing patient education on cleanliness and safety measures. Long term goal of hiring new clinical and patient care staff for a safe staff to patient ratio. The management strategies and tactics and strategies that can be undertaken to achieve the above goals are: The most important stakeholders in this strategic plan are the patients, clinical staff, management and the government. Management by Objectives (MBO) is an organized approach by management to focus on achievable goals and thereby achieve the optimum outcome from the available resources. The advantage of using MBO is that it involves the employees identify and align with the