Patient Safety in Nursing

Patient safety measures can lead to cost savings for the hospital. This can be achieved because when a patient is injured while under the care of the hospital, the hospital will have to foot the cost of treating the patient. A study conducted in 2013 showed that after the beefing up of patient safety, there was a 1.3 million reduction in the cases of patient harms (Mathews, 2017). The number of times patients are in harm’s way even in a hospital are more than expected. The issue of patient safety is not very widely considered by the citizens who consider the hospital a safe space. The hospital management, however, is always concerned with the development of better safety measures that will save them the cost treating patients who get injured while under their care. The whole hospital set up is supposed to be checked for the dangers it may cause to the people admitted or those visiting for check-ups. The systems of the hospitals have to be updated regularly to match the medical demands of modern medicine. 

The most prevalent cause of harm to patients is bad systems. This is one area which the hospitals have to look at critically. For instance; if the hospitals records have an error, the patient with erratic records may be treated with the wrong medication. This falls under the umbrella of awareness about the patient safety measures (Mathews, 2017). The patients and the health care providers are at the mercy of the hospital systems. For instance, a blood bank may have a problem with the screening procedures. This means that the health care providers in the hospitals will give contaminated blood without being aware that they are endangering the patients. This case shows that clearly, the health care provider and the patient are victims of faulty hospital systems. The hospital will have to incur the cost of rectifying the problem created by their systems. In some cases the problems resulting from loose safety measures of the hospitals to patients can be irreversible. Therefore, it is important for a hospital to invest wisely in patient safety equipment and systems.

Modern health care requires that hospitals are more susceptible to endangering the patients because the diseases have also evolved (Weston & Roberts, 2013). The number of times that a patient in this day and age develops a cancer of a type are many. Therefore, where the diagnosis systems are not regularly updated, the patients are exposed to danger. For instance, in the case of women and reproductive systems’ cancers, the health care practitioners have to be very careful when running tests and procedures. This is because the misdiagnosis of a tumor for cyst or fibroid accelerates the spread of the cancer cells in the woman’s body. A female patient may die when the tumor is cut and the diagnosis process does not end there. Treating cancer in its advanced stages is very costly for both the patient and the hospitals. This means that the systems of a hospitals have to be very well developed to prevent the endangerment of patients. This will also save the hospitals money because the chances of being sued for wrong treatment reduce as well as wrong use of medical facilities. The use of the medical facilities being used accurately regularly is important for the welfare of the patients and taking care of their patients effectively.

Developing good safety systems for patients in a hospital setting is crucial for saving the hospital the cost of dealing with the eventuality of a patient coming into harm’s way. It is important that patients have to be monitored closely and nurses trained to efficiently handle patients in case they get harmed. The rights of the patients to access good medication has to be respected and protected. This is where the Joint Commission in Health Care comes into play with regard to the safety of patients in hospitals.

The role of the Joint Commission’s role in health care is to accredit health care facilities that ensure the health care facilities are up to the required standards of operations. The commission evaluates the quality of health care, safety of the medications, the hospital’s measures of preventing infections and control of the infections as well as the rights of the hospitals (Rouse & DelVecchio, n.d.). The commission has been accredited by the government in a way that any hospital accredited by the commission can operate in conjunction with government organizations like the military. The commission is in charge of the quality of hospitals operating in the United States. It is an independent non-profit organization that fights for the rights of the patients in the American hospitals. 

The commission is one of the bodies that are charged with the responsibility of developing the standards required for the operation of a hospital in the United States. The commission also regulates the safety measures up to in place for the sake of patients (A, 2002). The commission has systems that are useful when checking for the security of the patients in the hospitals. It is important for the hospitals to be up to date with the minimum operation standards required by the joint commissions.

In patient health care the nurses, doctors and hospital administration has to be in good communication. The spending of the hospital funds have to be given to the safety department which in turn is expected to invest the same in a research for the newest safety measures for the patients. There are many ways of ensuring patient systems by developing the right health care systems. For instance, there is danger of infections during surgery. As a health care practitioner, when put in charge of taking care of the surgical sterilization, it is prudent to ensure that all the chemicals being used are of good quality to prevent infection of the patients being operated on. It is also the responsibility of the health care practitioners is to ensure that the right procedures are followed in the health care systems of the patients. 

As a health care practitioner, there are ways of ensuring safety of the patients. This includes research and personal choice of the health care practitioner. It is important for the individuals working in the hospital to ensure that they are well educated on the safety of the patients. The health care worker is constantly exposed to situations that they have to take care of the patient’s safety. The health care worker is supposed to be ready to deal with any kind of danger to the patient. When a patient is given the wrong medication, the health care personnel handling their case has to vigilant and note the mistake and rectify the situation. 

The chief nursing officer regarding patient safety role is important in the sense that the safety of the patients in the hospital is supposed to be taken care of by the hospital individuals. This role is supposed to be granted to an individual with a passion for the care of the patients. There are many ways to handle the safety of the patients in a hospital setting. Being the chief nursing officer of a hospital gives the person in charge the responsibility of reducing the costs of handling patient safety consequences. 

Nurses are supposed to practice their roles efficiently as per their training and education with regards to the safety measures for patients. The chief nursing officer has to practice their skills actively in order to be in a position to direct the other nurses under their management to ensure the safety of the patients.. The chief nursing officer has to ensure that the nurses working under it are united and stakeholders in the safety systems put in place for the sake of the patients. There is a lot of responsibility that is delegated to the chief nursing officer with regards to the management of the safety precaution for the patients.

Finally, the role of the chief nursing officer is to plan and make policies for developing the better safety policies. It is the role that entails overseeing the collection of date that is useful in noting the loopholes to patient safety. The quality of data collection and development of roadmaps for improving the security status of a hospital for patients is encouraged. The chief nursing officer is supposed to advice the administration of the hospital to improve the security systems to save costs.

References

A, P. K. (2002, April 15). Role of JCAHO Standards and Clinical Practice Guidelines in Promoting appropriate antimicrobial use. Health System . Retrieved from PUBMED.

Mathews, S. (2017). The Move to Value-Based Payment Models Could Mean Improvments in Patient Safety. Retrieved from The Healthcare Financial Management Association: www.hfma.org/Content.aspx?id=32499

Rouse, M., & DelVecchio, A. (n.d.). Joint Commission. Retrieved from Search Healthcare: searchhealthit.techtarget.com/definition/The-Joint-Commission

Weston, M., & Roberts, D. (2013). Quality Improvment Efforst on Patient Outcomes and Nursing Work: A perspective from the Chief Nursing officers at Three Large Health Systems. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, www.nursingworld.org/Quality-Improvment-on-Patient-outcomes.html.