I have to respond to the following statements of my classmates. Please provide at 100-150 words to each statement with a reference.

Re: MONITORING PATIENT SAFETY

posted by JENNIFER SHANKWEILER

Monitoring patient safety can encompass a great deal of aspects of care.  When we initially think of patient safety, things like falls, restraints, correct medication administration, pressure ulcers come to mind. We can also think of patient safety in terms of what is a safe blood pressure for a specific patient? Is the prescribed pain medicine the right choice for the patient’s pain? We can also delve a little deeper and look at the flip side of patient safety and examine the RCA process that leads to safer practice. When we look at patient safety overall, we have to ensure that the facilities processes are safe.  Caregivers cannot be set up to fail and not meet safety standards.

Public reporting has completely changed the patient safety ballgame. When it comes to HAIs, we have to report numbers of device-related infections along with surgical site infections.  With device related infections, we have to monitor device days and confirmed infections based on those device days. With SSI reporting, we have to monitor the patient themselves for a specified number of days post-op for any signs/symptoms of infection. For a number of years, these numbers were electively reported by healthcare facilities and now reporting is required by National Hospital Safety Network and CDC. Everything we do to and for patients should be monitored for safety, we owe that to our staff and our patients.

Re: MONITORING PATIENT SAFETY

posted by NICOLE FENNELL

What are some key measures that providers use to monitor patient safety?

Key measures that can be used by providers is by developing quality indicators and quality measures. “Quality measures are tools that help us measure or quantify health care processes, outcomes, patient perceptions, and organizational structure and/or systems that are associated with the ability to provide high-quality health care and/or that relate to one or more quality goals for health care. These goals include: effective, safe, efficient, patient-centered, equitable, and timely care, (CMS, 2014). Medicare and Medicaid have set up innovation projects to assist patients in how they take their medication. Patients tend to not pay attention to the instructions for their medication or forget to take it or think they don’t need it. This program will help educate patients on this matter that are on Medicare or Medicaid. I have also seen these plans role out in hospitals with patients who are on private insurance companies. This can lead to many medical complications or false diagnoses if patients are taking their medication as instructed or needed. This can reflex on patient safety and goals and benchmarks should be put into place so that the patient is being educated on the correct information. Data usually shows in these cases that overtime patients will become healthier and more aware of their medical conditions. Sometimes people like to believe out of sight out of mind but this can drastically affect their health care.

Re: MONITORING PATIENT SAFETY

posted by JENNIFER BOWERS

What are some keys measures that providers use to monitor patient safety?

Monitoring patient safety is vital in the health care industry. Unfortunately, the health care industry pays out a significant amount of money to patients, malpractice insurance agencies, and attorneys. By preventing accidents and errors we can decrease health care costs. It is important to prevent any problems before they may arise; therefore, completing variances, surveys, and hiring a qualified management team are just some ways the medical facility can help monitor patient safety. Whenever, there is an incident a report should be taken, reviewed by management team, and then measure should be taken to prevent this from happening again. According to Sun, (2014). “An adverse event is defined as an event that results in unintended harm to the patient by an act of commission or omission rather than by the underlying disease or condition of the patient” (Chapter 36 Monitoring Patient Safety Problems, para 3). An adverse event causes many problems for the patients and the medical facilities. Injuries and human errors are the number one cause of lawsuits. It is extremely important to uphold and implement any safety measures in medical facilities so that this problem can diminish or cease. By completing safety measures the medial facility will decrease cost and ensure the patient’s safety.