How to engage hospital nursing staff in the promotion of medication safety
A culture of medication safety has been a priority for many years; there has been less attention to incorporating culture of safety content into the engagement of the nursing staff. The goal of a culture of medication safety is to lessen harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance (Cronewett et al., 2007), numerous threats to patient safety remain and errors at all interface of care delivery.
There are some common obstacles to safe system include complex and risk-prone systems that produce unintended consequences; lack of comprehensive verbal and written communication system; tolerance to stylistic practices and lack of standardization; fear of punishment which inhibits reporting; and lack of ownership for patient safety. Nursing staff need to be knowledgeable about system vulnerabilities and understand how knowledge, skills and attitude promoting the utilization of safety science will lead to higher quality care for patients and families (Finkelman & Kenner, 2009)
Besides, there are some key elements of a culture of medication safety in an organization include the establishment of safety as an organizational priority, teamwork, patient involvement, openness/transparency, and accountability (Lamb, Studdert, Bohmer, Berwick, & Brennan, 2003).
A safety culture of the medication safety requires strong, committed leadership, along with engagement and empowerment of the nursing staff.
Nowadays, in a culture of medication safety, when an adverse incident occurs, the focus is on what went wrong rather than who caused the problem. Therefore, a balance is achieved between not blaming individuals for errors an...
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2. Cronenwett, L., Sherwood, G., Barnsteiner, J., Disch J., Janhson, J., Mitchell, P., … Warren, J (2007). Quality and safety education for nurses. Nursing Outlook, 55, 122-131.
3. Finkelman, A., & Kenner, C. (2009). Teaching IOM: Implications of the institute of medicine reports for nursing (2nd Ed.) Silver Springs, MD: Nursebooks.org.
4. Lamb, R. M., Studdert, D. M., Bohmer, R.M., Berwick, D.M. & Brennan, T.A. (2003). Hospital disclosure practices: Result of a national survey. Health Affairs, 22, 73-83.
5. Mitchell, P. (2008). Defining patient safety and quality care. In R.G. Hughes (Ed.), Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses (pp.1-1-6). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Publication No. 08-0043.
Integrating safety into nursing practice, education and research has a lot of significant implications for the instructor, practitioner, patient and the facility’s management. These are discussed below in detail.
Nurses are key components in health care. Their role in today’s healthcare system goes beyond bedside care, making them the last line of defense to prevent negative patient outcomes (Sherwood & Zomorodi, 2014). As part of the interdisciplinary team, nurses have the responsibility to provide the safest care while maintaining quality. In order to meet this two healthcare system demands, the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project defined six competencies to be used as a framework for future and current nurses (Sherwood & Zomorodi, 2014). These competencies cover all areas of nursing practice: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality
...estions if not 100% sure of something or use a double checking system. When a nurse is administrating medication, they should use the ten rights of medication administration (right patient, right drug, right route, right time, right dose, right documentation, right action, right form, right response, and right to refuse). Nurses should always keep good hand hygiene and always wear appropriate clothing to prevent from the spread of disease. Good communication with patients and healthcare team members is also key to success. Keeping on the eye on the patient within an appropriate time is important. If the patient ever seems to be looking different than their usual self vitals should be taken immediately. Encouraging patients to ask questions if they are unaware of something can prevent errors as well. Nurses should make sure the patient is on the same page as they are.
The Quality and Education for Nurses (QSEN) project has set several goals for future nurses to meet in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitude (KSAs), one of which is safety (2014). The definition of safety according to QSEN is minimizing risk of harm to patients through system effectiveness and individual performance (QSEN, 2014). Since falls are such a huge occurrence in health care, preventing falls is critical for patient safety. The Joint Commission (2011) has also noted fall prevention as a National Safety Patient Goal (NPSG) 09.02.01 requiring hospitals to reduce the risk of harm resulting from falls.
Patients Safety is the most crucial about healthcare sector around the world. It is defined as ‘the prevention of patients harm’ (Kohn et al. 2000). Even thou patient safety is shared among organization members, Nurses play a key role, as they are liable for direct and continuous patients care. Nurses should be capable of recognizing the risk of patients and address it to the other multi disciplinary on time.
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
Safe nurse-patient ratio is a complex issue debated on for many years. Due to inadequate staffing registered Nurses are faced with high patient ratios, and nurse burn out everyday. According to the American Nurses Association, “Massive Reductions in nursing budgets combined with, the challenges presented by a growing nursing shortage have resulted in fewer nurses working longer hours for sicker patients. This situation compromises care and contributes to the nursing shortage by creating an environment that drives nurses from the bedside”. (2012) Through the nursing process, the essential role of the Registered Nurse is to assess, diagnose, and plan based on outcomes, implement and evaluate the effectiveness of nursing care. However, it is not realistic to thoroughly implement these core guidelines in a safe and effective way, when you are
Safety competency is essential for high-quality care in the medical field. Nurses play an important role in setting the bar for quality healthcare services through patient safety mediation and strategies. The QSEN definition of safety is that it “minimizes risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.” This papers primary purpose is to review and better understand the importance of safety knowledge, skills, and attitude within nursing education, nursing practice, and nursing research. It will provide essential information that links health care quality to overall patient safety.
The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN’s) goal is to prepare future nurses with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) that are needed to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare systems within which they work. QSEN focuses on six main competencies; patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics. As we have learned in earlier classes these competencies and their KSAs offer a base to help us and other nurses as we continue our education and become RNs. As we will learn in this class these KSAs go hand in hand with health assessment.
Responsibility and accountability become important when medical staff gives or doses patients with medication. The chance for making a medication error presents itself at all times. Those passing medications must follow established policies and procedures developed and laid forth by t...
Mitchell, P. H. (2008). Defining patient safety and quality care an evidence-based handbook for nurses. Rockville,Maryland: Hughes. DOI: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2681/
The rate of errors and situations are seen as chances for improvement. A great degree of preventable adversative events and medical faults happen. They cause injury to patients and their loved ones. Events are possibly able to occur in all types of settings. Innovations and strategies have been created to identify hazards to progress patient and staff safety. Nurses are dominant to providing an atmosphere and values of safety. As an outcome, nurses are becoming safety leaders in the healthcare environment(Utrich&Kear,
The first nurse to introduce quality improvement was Florence Nightingale, who through gathering data on the positive effects of keeping adequate hygiene, nutrition and proper ventilation on the mortality rate during the Crimean War (Hood, 2014, p. 490-491). The initiatives towards improvement of quality lead to formation the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH), which is now known as The Joint Commission (2007). The Joint Commission is non-profit organization which gives accreditation to hospitals for recognizing their efforts to deliver quality health care with an added advantage of being eligible for the Medicare reimbursement program. Moreover, the Joint Commission also rolled out the Hospital Patient Safety Goals (2013) to prevent patient safety errors. Nursing professionals are essential for health care organizations to achieve and maintain the patient-safety goals as their work directly impacts the quality and safety of the patients. For instance, using two patient identifiers during medication administration to avert errors. Nurses have the distinct skills and responsibility towards patient safety and hence the need for Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) is the rational step towards quality improvement. Through the years, the QSEN has developed in Phases to ascertain the areas of competency requirements for nurses to deliver safe, efficient and excellent health care
The sources used were retrieved from the online Shapiro Library. Electronic databases, including CINAHL were used to do a multi-search for sources. Key works used included nursing safe staffing and nursing staff ratios and patient safety. The criteria used to select the articles were peer reviewed articles within the last five years.
Historically, the nursing profession has been actively involved in the health promotion and disease prevention among the general public. However, while caring for others, nurses often neglect their personal safety, which ultimately results in the high level of work-related injuries. Failure to timely address risk factors for nursing can have dire consequences for patient outcomes, since it is often associated with increased medication errors and patient falls, poor quality of care, and permanent disability of the nursing staff (Stokowski, 2014).