Essay On Patient Safety

Client Safety as a Public Health Issue

According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), patient safety is defined as the prevention of harm to patient. Within the system of care, they put an emphasis on error prevention, learn from errors that occur, and is built on a culture of safety among health care professionals, organizations, and patients (Mitchell, 2008). It is important for patient safety to be a priority in health care because they are already in the hospital for an illness we do not need to add to the problems they already have. It is imperative to look at patient safety from an individual, health system, and community level.

Individual Level

On the individual level it is important to look at the behaviors of the clients as well as

Many hospitals are using SIM to help learners be able to handle uncommon situation as well as learn from mistakes that have happened in the past (Huang, Norman & Chen, 2010). At McMaster Children’s Hospital, they have established a SIM program to improve patient safety, they have created six key strategies to guide the patient safety initiatives: focus on the common, engage leadership, start with clinical drivers/problems, modify existing patient safety programs, seek applications with immediate clinical implications, and involve hospital operations and patient safety committees (Huang, et al., 2010). By using these simulations, the health care professionals will know how to not make the same mistakes as previous professionals as well as know how to control common situations. Hospitals also implement different policies and protocols which need to be follow for each patient depending on this diagnosis. For example, if a patient is a fall risk there are numerous assessment which have to be done to determine this and multiple protocols which need to be followed once they have been put in that category. The nurses’ role is to make sure they are following these policies and using the proper assessments for their patient. Throughout nursing school, we talk about the importance of assessment in everything we do and with patient

Stakeholder is defined as one who is involved in or affect by a course of action (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) There are four different categories of stakeholders; such as providers, payers, employers, and patients (Duke University School…,2016). Each of these different stakeholders are looking at the idea of patient safety through a different set of eyes, but it is important for them to all understand what needs to be done to ensure patient safety. The provider is focusing on the aspect of the patient’s outcome, for them it is important to watch for patient safety so the patient gets better instead of worse. Many providers have certain protocols they want followed for their patients depending on the diagnosis to ensure optimal recovery as well as safety. The payers need to be involved in patient safety because they look at the financial aspect and see if these different protocols and policies are cost-effective to the hospital. Employers are important because they can give necessary input on the current policies and how to change them in the future if need be as well as how comfortable they are with different tools. Finally, the patient is important to address because at the end of the day, they are the ones we are trying to ultimately protect for harm. Nurses can engage these different stakeholders and talk about what they see on the floors