Health Management - Elements of Patient Safety - Research Paper Example

HEALTH MANAGEMENT - ELEMENTS OF PATIENT SAFETY Managing the aftermath of an adverse safety incident Safety in health sectors is a vital aspect that should be given priority. In many cases, safety is steadfast in ensuring a patientmaintains a better health.Therefore, there is a need to look at the safety standards in the institution to ensure the patients are given the best services. Apparently, some patients succumb to their injuries due to the limited safetystandards in the health institutions. Healthinstitutions that do not give priority to the safety standards are likely to reflect dismal results. The patients are the most affected people since they are directly in need of the services in the health sectors (Dale and Anderson, 2010: 12). When the patients are not treated with the highest safety standards, they are likely to record dismal results in their performance. For instance, when the patients are not living in a highly hygienic place, they are likely to contact other diseases which will affect their health. Similarly, there is a need for health practitioners to offer services at the right time and at the right place. For instance, some patients need emergency services and should be given priority whenever they check into an institution. Such people need urgent care and services as their situation is extremely out of control (Khatri Hughes LC, Chan and Mark, 2009: 28). However, when the situation is not given priority, the person is likely to succumb to the injuries since the situation is getting worse. For instance, a person that is profusely bleeding needs urgent care. It is openly expressed that a person that is profusely bleeding needs to be given ample care and first aid. This will stop the bleeding and the person will be in a stable condition. However, when the bleeding continues for a long time, the person is not likely to survive. The body fluids will be at minimal levels, which is detrimental to a person’s health. The safety incident There are a number of incidences in the health sector that openly display the need for safety measures in the profession. In most instances, the incidences are caused by human error. The people working on the patients are erroneous and end up making a mistake. Some mistakes are controllable while others are not controllable and could affect the life of the victim. However, in bizarre cases, the consequences of the incident are adverse and this could lead to death of the victim. These calls for undivided and focused attention from the medical practitioners and the nurses in the profession to ensure the patients are given steadfast services (Hurwitz and Sheikh, 2011: 21). The errors are at times sheer negligence while in other instances, they are done by mistake. The errors that are done with precedent reactions can be minimised by enhancing the regulations that are stated in the institution (Kalra, 2011: 17). Stringent actions should be implemented on such activities. This will reduce any instances of these accidents occurring since the people that are committing them will be careful. Apparently, when the medical practitioners are hell-bent on their job, these instances will never occur in the medical practitioner. Similarly, there is need to clearly state the objectives of the profession (Kalra, 2011:18).The profession deems to reduce any errors that could jeopardise the quality of services that are offered. Therefore, any person that would want to jeopardise the quality of services will be unequivocally revoked from the institution. This will leave the only practitioners that would want to make the best approach in treating patients. According to recent research, it is considered that the anaesthetic accidents are prevalent in the nursing profession. Anaesthetic is the practical activity of inducing a person to sleep when there is a need for operation. The person is almost dead as most parts of the body are dormant. The person’s senses are not functional, though there could be minute reaction. For instance, when a person is induced to anaesthetics, the person’s senses are disabled for a period of time. The anaesthetic combination is dependent on how long the doctors would want the patient to sleep (Arias, 2010:13). Some doctors would like the patient to sleep for less than six hours since it is a minor surgery. However, some doctors take over 6 hours in the surgery room and would need a medical prescription that will make the patient to sleep for a longer time. This allows the doctors to perform all the process and surgery that is needed on the patient without any disturbance. It could be a threatening occurrence when a patient wakes up in the middle of an operation. Therefore, there is a need to make keen decisions on this particular issue. Apparently, there are some instances where this particular issue is not given the best attention and dedication it needs. This has led to some life threatening occasions in the health sector and has led to undivided attention from the managers. The doctors make minute mistakes but these mistakes are detrimental to the health of many people. For instance, some doctors make errors in the measurements of the anaesthetics (Healy, 2011: 13). The anaesthetics that are supposed to be injected in the patient are supposed to be measured according to the stated time limits and other parameters. However, exceeding the measurements is detrimental to a person’s health. In the first place, the anaesthetics could affect the functioning of the body sensory organs. As such, the sensory organs will not be functional in their daily routine. For instance, when the anaesthetics are given in a higher dose, the person’s organs will be in this state for a long time (Melvin, 2009: 17). This will affect the functionality as they will take some time to recover. The time taken to recover will affect a person’s life in the long run. Therefore, this is a situation that should be put under control. These managers should look for better ways of ensuring patient safety is maintained. This will reduce the number of deaths that occur due to the mistakes that are done in the health sector. As matter of fact, reversing this situation is a hard task and requires professional approach.Apparently, most of the body organs are hibernating while the sensory organs are not performingtheir duties. Therefore, it is not easy to notice that there is a malpractice that has been done. Therefore, the life of the victim is put on the line in such a situation (Brown and Hicks, 2009: 307). The person’s life could be jeopardised without the necessary approach and process that are needed. For instance, the person should be revitalised to start functioning again. In some instance, the person is put under sophisticated machines for specialised medical processes. The machines assist in revitalising the person to a stable health. Managers have to come in to solve the situation. Some of the victims are put under machines that assist in breathing and reinstating the body to start performing its normal functions. In most cases, the victims survive due to the professional assistance from professional doctors. Therefore, there is a need to delegate the duties of performing these tasks to professionals. Professionals have the required credentials and experience in these tasks and will likely give the patient the required treatment. Similarly, they will give the patient the right prescription at the right time. Managers effectively managing aftermath of patient safety incident In making a better approach in reducing such instances, there are various strategies that could be used. First, there is the need for apt clinical governance in health institutions. Health institutions should practice high trend clinical management that is controlled by professionals. The professionals will be in charge of delegating duties in regard to the patients that have checked into the institution. Some patients have serious cases and should only be delegated to highly experienced professionals. For instance, such cases should be given to the most experienced doctors in the institution. This will reduce any instances of anaesthetic accidents. Highly qualified doctors in the institution have been attending to such cases in most of their career practise and have fill information on controlling this particular issue. However, delegating such duties to junior staff is likely to come with the dire consequences which include anaesthetic accident. Secondly, patient evaluation should be done by the highly qualified professionals (Kramen and Hamm, 2002: 962). These professionals have the art of evaluating patients and finding the possible changes that have occurred. Such professionals will discover any incident that has been wrongly done in the meanest time. They will look for solutions in the meanest time, which will save the patient the agony of going through the negativity of wrong anaesthetic medication. Lastly there is a need to focus on continuous patient evaluation. This is mainly focused in the first victim, and any other subsequent victims. A patient should be evaluated on a constant routine, to notice any changes that could affect the patient (OECD, 2010: 15). For instance, a person that has been given an anaesthetic overdose could be discovered with constant evaluation. The change in the patient will be discovered in the least time. This would call for the possible reactions to the situation. There is the role of human factors in all the anaesthetic incidences that happen in the health sector. Controlling the human actions will be a step forward in reducing the prevalence of these situations in the health sector. First, there is a need to maintain safety standards in the institution (Helmreich, 2000: 784). When there is high maintenance of safety standards in the institution, there is likelihood that human errors will be reduced. For instance, anaesthetic incidences happen due to human error (Awofeso, 2012: 12). Therefore, reducing the probability of human errors will enhance the treatment criteria in the institution. Secondly, there is a need to focus on the issue of enhancing studies in the institution (Department of Health, 2000: 11). The medical sector is an evolving sector and therefore, the medical practitioners should also be evolving. To begin with, all the practitioners should be enrolled in institutions to learn better ways of dealing with certain infections and diseases. Thirdly, the heath sector can be made better by checking on the number of hours the professionals are on duty (Jeynee, 2012:11). People that are on duty for a long time are fatigued and are likely to make mistakes in the health sector. However, maintaining the number of recommended hours in the health sector is likely to reduce the number of mistakes in the institution. The professionals should have enough rest and enough sleep to give better services. There is a need to instigate a high quality service provision culture in the medical institutions. The culture will direct the workers into giving high quality services. Similarly, there is a need to sprout a culture of relaying information to the whole institution in ensuring the patients are given the best treatment and services. For instance, Relaying full information on the state of the patient prepares the professionals on how they will approach the situation (Wachter, 2007: 12). In addition to this, there is a need to propagate professionalism in al health institutions. When the issue of professionalism is brought in the institutions, it is certain that all the professional services will be given professionally. This will lead to high quality services in the whole institution (Vincent, 2006: 10). However, any institution that does not rely on professionalism is likely to give dismal performance as the errors in the institution will be increasing with time. For instance, the doctors should only perform duties they are qualified to do. However, embarking on some duties they are not qualified for will often result into human error such as the anaesthetic incident. Lastly, there is need to embrace the systems and methods that are used in the institution to give high quality services (Amalberti, Auroy, Berwick and Barach, 2005:763). First, there is a need to apply the lessons that are learned in school and during professional practice. During professional practice, there are many lessons that are taught and the practitioners should use these lessons in treating the patients (Pierre, Hofinger, Buerschaper, 2008: 12). First, there is a need to embrace technology in all the institutions. All medical institutions should use sophisticated technology in ensuring they are giving the best services to the patients that check into the institutions. For instance, when there is use of technology, there are high chances of getting the best measurements in regard to medication (Dekker, 2007:23). Therefore, the patients will be given the right amount of drug. In addition to this, using technology in treatment ensure the diseases are diagnosed in the least time possible. This will reduce any instances of wrong treatment to the in existent infections and diseases. Secondly, there is a need to embrace error reporting systems in theinstitutions. These systems are likely to discover any error anytime it occurs. This will help rectify the situation in the meanest time. However, absence of such reporting systems just makes the situation worse. In conclusion there is need to educate the practitioners on the need for commitment and dedication. This will reduce all the instances of human error, including anaesthetic error instances. References Amalberti R, Auroy Y, Berwick D, Barach P (2005) Five system barriers to achieving ultrasafe healthcare.Annals of Internal Medicine v 142 (9) pp765-764. Arias K. M. 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(2009) AdministrationżsElectronic Data Exchanges Is Information Technology: Demand for the Social Security Growing and Presents Future Challenges, New York: DIANE Publishing. Read More