Nursing patients safety Goals

For this activity, you will review the National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) for hospitals and identify 2-3 ways that hospitals/healthcare facilities adhere to each goal in practice.

Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goals (Links to an external site.)

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National Patient Safety Goals

ANSWER

National Patient Safety Goals

Every year information is gathered about the emerging issues regarding patient safety issues from extensively acknowledged stakeholders and experts. Considerably, this information becomes the basis of national patient safety goals, which informs the healthcare practices and performance. The National patient safety goals have been an initiative to achieve optimal performance and improve the safety of healthcare services for patients (Joint Commission, 2016). The national patient safety goals entail preventing infection, recognizing patients appropriately, using alarms safely, improving team communication, using medicine safely, identifying patient safety risks, as well as avoiding mistakes in surgery.

Correct patient recording and labeling medicines have been the most effective healthcare practices through which hospitals have implemented the medicine safety goal (Joint Commission, 2020). Considerably, these are aimed at reducing the medication errors that are have led to potential harm.  Correct identification of patients has been implemented through hospital admission policies that have identified a patient. Some hospitals have identified a patient through their date of birth, while others utilize the names of the patient.

Another effective practice has been the standardization of patient identification approaches, such as two identifiers that have facilitated correct matching patients with correct care. This has been done to ensure that each patient obtains the correct treatment and medicine. The major areas where patient identification can occur include blood transfusions, drug administration, surgical procedures, and phlebotomy (Joint Commission, 2019). For instance, if a patient is undergoing a blood transfusion, the health practitioner can correctly identify the correct blood for the patient.

Efforts to facilitate better healthcare have been jeopardized by collaboration and communication barriers among clinical staff. Effective communication among the healthcare staff is essential since it protects the patients, increases daily operating efficiency, and saves on costs. Patients have access to their medical status, which lowers the chances of medical errors. Implementation of patient satisfaction surveys, and scheduling regular meetings for employees have encouraged employee evaluations, feedback, a patient’s standpoint, concerns, questions, and complaints. These have been effective ways through which hospitals have incorporated effective communication to improve the quality of healthcare.

Alarm safety is an essential component of patient safety goals. To ensure that alarms are used safely, hospitals have established guidelines and processes for alarm settings to avoid nuisance alarms. Additionally, there have been improvements on the alarms through safe alarm management to ensure that that the alarms are heard and responded to on time. The patient safety goals have emphasized reducing health-related infections. Proper hand hygiene is one of the major ways through which health-related infections are reduced within hospitals. Hand cleaning procedures offered by the Centers for Disease prevention and control have been utilized to enhance hand cleaning (Joint Commission, 2020). Hospitals have implemented an effective patient safety culture that has been used to maintain a low infection within the hospitals. For instance, various guidelines have been utilized to prevent infection of the blood, urinary tract, and after surgery.

Patient safety issues have been described around the lack of basic care and delayed non-treatment and treatment decisions. Identifying patients whose safety is at risk has been designed to improve the safety and quality of care for those that are being treated for behavioral health status. Hospitals have implemented procedures that have mitigated the risk of suicide by removing objects that may lead to self-harm and one-on-one monitoring of patients within the hospital rooms. Clinical evaluation has also been essential in identifying patient safety risks. Evaluations have facilitated collaborative approaches with the patients who can share their concerns with the patient in an empathetic way to allow them to feel listened to.

Considerably, these are successful ways of reducing patient safety risk. Identified potential risk factors are effective focal points for interventions. For instance, experiences such as chronic illness, social isolation are essential for evaluating the origin of the immediate suicide risk. The healthcare providers organize, recognize, and act upon potentiating risk factors through policies regarding monitoring of patients and clinical evaluation. These have enabled informed decisions that need to be done regarding patient safety risk while in the care environment.

Mistakes can occur during surgery where surgeons can operate the wrong part or even operate the wrong person. Early efforts to avoid wrong procedure, wrong site, and incorrect-patient surgery have included adherence and implementation of protocols that have identified the correct procedure, site, and patient (Joint Commission, 2020). For instance, ensuring that the right surgery is done at the right place on the patient’s and to the right patient. Root analysis has been another way health professionals evaluate before surgery to ensure that mistakes do not occur.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the importance of national patient safety goals is to facilitate the patient’s safety. Ideally, the National patient safety goals have been generated by the joint commission to address certain concerns about health safety and how to address health safety issues. The National patient safety goals have aimed at highest patient safety tailoring each of the goals to a specific health program. These goals have applied to critical access hospitals, home care, ambulatory health care, and hospitals.

References

Joint Commission. (2016). Hospital national patient safety goals. Retrieved November 14, 2015.

Joint Commission. (2019). National Patient Safety Goals Effective January 2019: Behavioral health care accreditation program.

Joint Commission. (2020). Hospital National Patient Safety Goals: 2020. Goals UP. 01.01. 01 through UP. 01.03. 01.