PATIENT-CENTRED CARE, SAFETY AND STUDENT-CENTRED LEARNING

Date

Patient-Centred Care, Safety and Student-Centred Learning

Case study

Part 1

A health care provider with challenges in record keeping is a danger to patients. Misplacing patient records could expose them to dangers of being administered with drugs that cause allergic reactions. In the case study scenario, the student needs to understand that records of patients have to be well kept despite his careless nature. Records in patient care are supposed to help track the progress of their treatment. This is done to ensure that in case there is need for extra care or change in medication, it is realized as soon as possible. Therefore, the student needs to be trained on keeping records carefully without doing the work for him. Student-centred learning in this case will have to be adopted by putting the student be in charge of arranging patient records every evening under supervision and sometimes alone (McMillan, 2010). Patients’ records have to be backed up in an electronic storage system as well. This will make sure that in as much as the student is being trained, the safety of patients is not compromised in the process.

Part 2

With regards to an escalated situation where the student was careless and forgot to update the patient information, this cannot be taken lightly. The student in this case should be taken off the care process for this particular patient. The patient should then be notified and shown that the student has been taken off their case. This will work in both reprimanding the student and reassuring the patient that their health is being taken seriously by the hospital’s staff. It will also help to prevent the patient from seeking legal redress on the matter. The risks to the patient’s ongoing care are in danger of being misinterpreted and wrong care given. This means that the patient may end up taking longer to get well. In the worst case scenario, the patient’s condition may get worse permanently if wrong intervention is taken. The educational considerations in this scenario are that the student does not get better with time if they can make mistakes of such magnitude on real patients. Being a clinical supervisor demands that the healthcare worker puts the patients’ needs first. Therefore, the student mishandling patient records during training demands that they revise their notes on handling patient records (Morris, 2010). 

This being a delicate situation where the safety of the patient and patient care are most important, followed by student-centred learning, I will need to be careful to ensure that even while dealing with the student’s carelessness the patient is safe. This entails having the student fill out the information that is missing on the patient records promptly. After that, I will talk to the patient and assure them that their previous intervention will be reversed and another type of treatment sorted to help them feel better (McCormack & McCance, 2006). I can make it better by calling in a specialist tied to the hospital to ensure that the patient’s state has not regressed. Beyond merely making the patient feel well cared for, the doctor should actually examine the patient extensively and offer new and adequate medical intervention if necessary that will make them feel better.

In a bid to encourage student centred learning, the student should be allowed to talk about the dangers of mishandling patient records. In this case, there is a practical situation to learn from. The student, if serious with earning their degree, will see that the carelessness on his part could cost the patient his sanity and in the case where the patient takes his case to the legal justice system, the whole hospital would be held accountable. It is, therefore, advisable for the student to understand that they not only stand the risk of losing their job and license to practice but also risk being convicted for negligence of the patient. Once the student understands this, and still continue to mishandle patient records, there is little I can do to change the situation. It is only possible to make recommendations to the teachers to ensure that the student is taught about the importance of strictly keeping patient records updated. 

Educational considerations. A clinical supervisor is expected to be adequately trained on the management of hospital workers. This includes putting them in charge of the work relationship among other workers. The clinical supervisor is supposed to ensure that at the end of the training, the student can correctly understand the operations of a hospital (ASHA Ad Hoc, 2017). A student working under the clinical supervisor should ensure that the student grows a sense of responsibility, emotional intelligence to communicate in difficult medical situations, and, most importantly, the student will be better equipped to handle hospital schedules and patient care.

Risks to patient safety. Patients have a right to receive the best treatment available in the hospital where they go seeking treatment. The risks presented by the careless nature of the student further indicates the severity of the behaviour in patient safety. Failure to keep records of patients well enough results in patient cases being mishandled. Patients also have the right of being informed about all the medical procedures to be performed to them. This is something the patient in this case does not seem to have been informed (McCormack & McCance, 2006). Had he been well informed, he would have reported to the doctor that the intervention did not seemingly work as it was required or expected. Keeping patient records protects both the patient and the hospital in case the patient defaults on their treatment and ends up having complications that they had been warned about. Informed consent holds that a patient retains the right to accept or reject treatment except in cases where the patient is not in their right state of mind and the medical condition is life threatening. Keeping records in such instances absolves the hospital administration of all the consequences the patient is likely to face for rejecting the type of treatment offered (ASHA Ad Hoc, 2017). 

Management of the situation to ensure patient-centred care and student learning. When the student understands what is at stake, this is achieved by hands on training, the patient-centred care is easy to achieve (McMillan, 2010). This means that the student can easily be assisted in keeping straight records and eventually doing away with the careless nature. The first step of helping the student to be keener in keeping patient records is identifying what distracts him to the point where they forget to take patient notes. Secondly, encouraging them to do things promptly instead of procrastinating will help the student get better in conducting medical interventions. Judging by the way the student takes the advice on keeping records better, it is easy to determine whether the carelessness is due to lack of interest in the training or just the student’s characteristic. Any time the student keeps proper records, it is important to reward them and record it in their progress report (Morris, 2010)t. This will help the tutor know how best to help the student qualify better as a medical worker. 

It is important to understand that the student needs closer supervision to ensure that they do not end up being given a pass yet they can easily make a mistake once they are licensed to operate in hospitals. The learning experience of the student will have to be adjusted to ensure they are well trained to be in the medical workforce in future. The student will be assigned to a particular doctor who will explain systematically the dangers and the importance of keeping patient records. This will be mixed up with sessions of personal learning plans by the student who will take the responsibility of learning by observation. The student should also be regularly shown their progress records (ASHA Ad Hoc, 2017). This means that the student will be allowed to see what the assessors think of their performance and ultimately ensure that they can correctly correct their mistakes. The patients will regularly and randomly asked to give their view on the treatment quality they receive from the student. At the same time, the student should be encouraged to ask questions and seek clarification as many times as possible to ensure that they know what is expected of them. It is important in the medical care systems that training is done comprehensively. This means that on the other end of the training, expertise is promoted among medical health practitioners. The student also needs to have time to engage the supervisor to get pointers into how to improve their health care performance. The student should have a journal to record everything they learn and this will ensure that they hardly forget to complete the tasks they should at the end of the day. Keeping journals may be the best and most effective way of ensuring that the student leaves nothing uncompleted (McCormack & McCance, 2006). The student should also have an input in the way they feel they should be guided in the learning process. The student should be presented with more complex cases to understand in a bid to ensure that he feels more challenged.

References

ASHA Ad Hoc, 2017. Clinical Education and Supervision. [Online]
Available at: www.asha.org/PRPSpecificTopic.aspx?folderid=8589942113&section=Key_Issues
[Accessed 10 November 2017].

McCormack, B. & McCance, T. V., 2006. Development of a Framework for Person-centered nursing. Journal of advanced Nursing, 56(5), pp. 472-479.

McMillan, W. J., 2010. Teaching for Clinical Reasoning- helping students make the conceptual links, s.l.: Medical Teacher.

Morris, C., 2010. Facilitating Learning in the Workplace. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 71(1), pp. 48-50.