An analysis of patient safety in the health care industry reveals a multitude of challenges facing providers and patients alike. A new commitment to providing safe, quality health care to patients is a critical part of reforming the U.S. health care system. But to be effective, a new health care discipline (i.e. Patient Safety), needed to be established that would emphasize the reporting, analysis, and prevention of medical errors that lead to adverse health care events. In analyzing this growing health care issue, I found that measuring and improving patient safety is complicated by many factors. We’ll examine a few of them in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the issues preventing the health care industry from resolving this problem.
First, it is extremely difficult to gather sufficient data to assess whether systematic reporting of medical errors and patient safety events are being accomplished. Secondly, there is widespread fear by health care providers that their participation in any official analysis of medical errors or patient care processes may be used against them in a court of law or damage their professional reputations. Thirdly, there is tremendous difficulty in aggregating and sharing critical confidential data across health care facilities and interstate lines. But these hurdles didn’t just pop up a year or two ago. Adverse provider-caused incidents have been increasingly problematic for over a decade. So to understand how we got to this point, let’s take a look back.
In 1999, a powerful review of the United State’s healthcare system was conducted by the Quality of Health Care in America Committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). They concluded that "it is not acceptable for patients t...
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...l and national leaders of the importance of this critical issue that will improve the safety and peace of mind for all patients during what many consider the most vulnerable time of their life.
References
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Ranking 37th — Measuring the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System. Christopher J.L. Murray, M.D., D.Phil., and Julio Frenk, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
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Yong, Pierre L., Robert Samuel Saunders, and LeighAnne Olsen. The Healthcare Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes : Workshop Series Summary. Washington, D.C.: National Academies, 2010. Print.
Safety is a primary concern in the health care environment, but there are still many preventable errors that occur. In fact, a study from ProPublica in 2013 found that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year suffer preventable harm in the hospital (Allen, 2013). Safety in the healthcare environment is not only keeping the patient safe, but also the employee. If a nurse does not follow procedure, they could bring harm to themselves, the patient, or both. Although it seems like such a simple topic with a simple solution, there are several components to what safety really entails. Health care professionals must always be cautious to prevent any mishaps to their patients, especially when using machines or lifting objects, as it has a higher
Safety is focused on reducing the chance of harm to staff and patients. The 2016 National Patient Safety Goals for Hospitals includes criteria such as using two forms of identification when caring for a patient to ensure the right patient is being treated, proper hand washing techniques to prevent nosocomial infections and reporting critical information promptly (Joint Commission, 2015). It is important that nurses follow standards and protocols intending to patients to decrease adverse
Kohn, L. et al. 2000. To err is human: building a safer health system. Washington D.C. National Academies Press.
Because nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers, they are in the best position to improve patient safety and quality of care. While teaching and preparing students to become nurses, nurse educators have a very important role in helping to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of upcoming nurses related to patient safety. Healthcare professionals, such as nurses, are highly skilled and well educated, but the healthcare system continues to be disrupted by quality and safety issues.
The role that the government plays to ensure that these challenges are mitigated and that health care is available to all American citizens is also discussed. Among these problems, poor quality of care is perhaps the most visible and troubling, resulting in nearly 100,000 preventable deaths each year (Institute of Medicine, 1999) and reduced quality of life for millions of Americans due to non-fatal yet serious adverse events such as wrong-limb amputation, hospital-acquired infection, and medication errors (Institute of Medicine, 2006; Leape, 1997). Health care must be fully accountable for quality, and the patient experience is simply the patient's perception of quality. Society should question and debate how healthcare organizations should show improvement for consumers. This can help organizations create reliable health coverage costs and evaluate medical performance for families and individuals in the future.
Patient safety is the basis of quality health care in the hospital. Works applied to patient safety and practices that have not prevented hazard have focused on negative outcomes of care, such as mortality and morbidity. Healthcare employees are important to the surveillance and coordination that will reduce such adverse effects.
Reforming the health care delivery system to progress the quality and value of care is indispensable to addressing the ever-increasing costs, poor quality, and increasing numbers of Americans without health insurance coverage. What is more, reforms should improve access to the right care at the right time in the right setting. They should keep people healthy and prevent common, preventable impediments of illnesses to the greatest extent possible. Thoughtfully assembled reforms would support greater access to health-improving care, in contrast to the current system, which encourages more tests, procedures, and treatments that are either
In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)
To say that the U.S. health care system is inadequately run, is an understatement. Today’s society faces many shortcomings when utilizing health care in the United States and some of these inadequacies include diminishing
The health care is extremely important to society because without health care it would not be possible for individuals to remain healthy. The health care administers care, treats, and diagnoses millions of individual’s everyday from newborn to fatal illness patients. The health care consists of hospitals, outpatient care, doctors, employees, and nurses. Within the health care there are always changes occurring because of advance technology and without advance technology the health care would not be as successful as it is today. Technology has played a big role in the health care and will continue in the coming years with new methods and procedures of diagnosis and treatment to help safe lives of the American people. However, with plenty of advance technology the health care still manages to make an excessive amount of medical errors. Health care organizations face many issues and these issues have a negative impact on the health care system. There are different ways medical errors can occur within the health care. Medical errors are mistakes that are made by health care providers with no intention of harming patients. These errors rang from communication error, surgical error, manufacture error, diagnostic error, and wrong medication error. There are hundreds of thousands of patients that die every year due to medical error. With medical errors on the rise it has caused the United States to be the third leading cause of death. (Allen.M, 2013) Throughout the United States there are many issues the he...
It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).