Introduction
Patient safety is an important component when it comes to quality nursing care. This is because nurses have a sound knowledge which enables them to be involved in provision of health care services in every health care system. Their knowledge plays an important role when safety of their patients is put into question. Nurses are always expected to keep their patients safe, identify areas where risks are involved and identify the situations that need improvement. In today’s world, being prone to errors has been the major problem facing most health care systems due to some of the basic systems flaws. Occurrence of an error can happen when some planned activities (both mental and physical) does not result to expected intended outcome. Hence, nurses are required to provide competent, safe and ethical care in relation to their code of ethics (Code of ethics for registered nurses, 2002). In addition, it is the duty the society in general to ensure that delivery of safety patient care is done responsibly and it does not result to harm of the patients. Most of the health care systems have been described as prone to errors and harmful to safe patient care. To address the safety health care issues, it is important to identify the major challenges to safe nursing care and develop ways that can contribute to safety delivery of health care to patients.
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"Single Greatest Threat to the Quality and Patient Safety Health Care Delivery Today and Ways to Mitigate This Threat".
The first challenge facing safety health care delivery always arises when there is poor communication between the teams concerned. It is important to note that health care systems comprises of professional team of nurses and other medical professionals who are required to collaborate and work well to ensure quality safety care of patients. However, many external factors always bring interference when it comes to communication between the teams resulting to poor communication. Mostly, break down of communication between the teams always occur during times of transition especially during transfer of patients between different facilities and change of shifts between the team members. According to a report done in Canada, around 30 per cent of the negative incidents are reported to the Canadian Nurses Protective Authority; most of the incidents showed that the error occurred because of poor communication and lack of collaboration between the teams concerned (CNPS, 2003).
Secondly, technology is also a threat to the quality of safety health care delivery today. In fact, it is important to note that technology is medically related and some health care systems rely mostly on technology dispensing drugs and ordering of the various types of medications. Advances in technology have enabled various health care systems to have the potential to enhance safety of patients. Nevertheless, this technology always results to complexity of care especially to those health care systems which rely mostly on technology without paying much attention to the symptoms and signs that the patients are experiencing. In most health care facilities, nurses are not always involved in discussions involving implementation and development of these new technologies and sometimes they do not receive training regarding the use of these new systems. As a result, it always increases the risk of adverse effects occurring.
In addition, patients’ perspective on their safety always affects quality health care delivery. Patients always contribute to these errors when they combine over the counter drugs and prescription given to them by qualified medical professionals without consulting any health care professional. This potential misunderstandings caused by the patients, may be a major contribution when it comes to problems related with safety of the patients.
Ways to Mitigate Threats That Interfere with Quality and Safety Health Care Delivery Today
One of the ways to mitigate these threats is through team training on safety culture across various health care systems (Jones et al, 2013). Safety culture provides an environment where organization members; learn, share, endure values and behaviors regarding the organization willingness in error detection and learning from it (Jones et al, 2013). The skills, knowledge and attitude provide the team members with flexibility when there is need to manage complexity and they should be able to learn from the situation. Effective teamwork is always facilitated by skills in situation monitoring, leadership, communication and mutual support. In addition, team training always result to transformation in change in respect to safety culture when the working environment is in supportive of transfer from learning to new behavior (Jones et al, 2013). It is important to note that successful team training always improves outcomes of the patient.
Secondly, use of safety checklists in acute hospital settings can be used to mitigate the threats that interfere with the quality and safety of health care delivery (Ko et al, 2011). It is important to note that patient safety is an important factor when it comes to good quality health care. Proposition of the use of checklists have always been suggested as a better method of improving the safety of patients (Ko et al, 2011). This involves the use of various designs of the safety checklists and implementation of them in different ways. Though the use of these checklists have always been put in to question, various studies suggests that use of these checklists have some benefits in relation to patient safety and it also helps in improving adherence of the protocols.
Lastly, quality and patient safety teams in the perioperative setting can help in mitigating the threats related to quality and safety health care delivery (Serino, 2015). This method always provides personnels with a safety net which will help them in prevention of avoidable errors. It is always used in complex world such as surgical. The quality and safety teams always result to improved satisfaction in patients, improved patient outcomes and improved regulatory compliance. These teams have the responsibility of accessing, measuring, identifying and improving important activities and processes. Also, these teams facilitate the development of safety systems which always help when it comes to implementation process involving operational change.
In conclusion, it is clear that health care systems really need some improvement and resigning of their health care systems. Health care systems should ensure that patient receives safety and quality services and they should avoid injuries to patients from the care that is supposed to be helping them. In addition to that, they should provide effective services to patients basing their facts on resulting benefits to the concerned patients with the use of their scientific knowledge. To add on that, the health care systems should ensure that their services are provided at accurate time to prevent harmful delays to patients and it should be efficient to avoid wastage of maybe equipments and supplies. Nevertheless, the health care systems should provide services which are patient centered. It should be respectful and responsive of the patients’ preferences, values and needs. Without forgetting, an efficient health care system should be equitable in such a way that it provides care to patients without variance in quality based on personal characteristics such as gender. Lastly, it is important to note that safety of patients from injuries resulting from health care systems needs to be addressed; more actions need to be done to help in preventing and mitigating these errors.
- Jones, K. J., Skinner, A. M., High, R., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (2013). A theory-driven, longitudinal evaluation of the impact of team training on safety culture in 24 hospitals. BMJ Quality & Safety, 22(5), 394-404. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2012-000939
- Code of ethics for registered nurses. (2002). Ottawa, ON: Canadian Nurses Association.
- Canadian Nurses protective Society. (2003). Ottawa, ON: Canadian Nurses Protective Socity 2002 Annual report.
- Ko, H. C., Turner, T. J., & Finnigan, M. A. (2011). Systematic review of safety checklists for use by medical care teams in acute hospital settings – limited evidence of effectiveness. BMC Health Services Research, 11(1). doi:10.1186/1472-6963-11-211
- Serino, M. F. (2015). Quality and Patient Safety Teams in the Perioperative Setting. AORN Journal, 102(6), 617-628. doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2015.10.006
