Evidence of the Need to Mitigate the Negative Impact of One Challenge
loftonl007
LoftonLNHS8051u02d01.docxLetrese Lofton
Capella University
[NHS 8051 u03d01]
Creating a Culture of Safety within the Military Healthcare Sector
In absence of having the requirement of a practicum and preceptor, I would like to state my intentions for a proposal of ethical principles and creating a culture of safety within the military healthcare sector. In describing the prospective practicum site, the organization is a military outpatient healthcare facility that houses aerospace medicine, family medicine, a pediatric wing, and women’s health to include ancillary services such as optometry, radiology, laboratory, dental, and mental health. The populations served are over 10,000 military members and their families in the local area. The organization’s mission and goals are to be combat-ready and provide medical support to those beneficiaries and the surrounding areas. The overall mission of the 23rd Wing on Moody Air Force Base itself is to ensure combat readiness and the 23rd Medical Group ensures that military members are health ready.
One of the challenges within the military health sector as in the civilian sector is developing a safety culture. Generating a high-performance organization and teams within that field is difficult when healthcare employees experience burnout due to long work hours and staffing shortages. The military is no exception with its members experiencing this ten-fold due to the requirement of having both a military mission and a medical mission. The military health system (MHA) is complex in that is deals with both battlefield and regular health missions including infectious diseases throughout the world. That mission extends to providing care to 9.6 million active duty people, their families, and retirees of service (Health.mil, 2021). Due to this mission in military healthcare, staff shortages are abounded which leads to an ever-changing environment and a lot of mistakes from burnout. Burnout and lack of staff communication can lead to issues.
According to the Joint Commission, 80% of serious safety events occur when medical staff members do not communicate effectively and speak up during procedures. Speaking up is one of the most critical factors while steps to improve behaviors are following safety protocols, communicating effectively, and taking care of yourself as a healthcare provider (Nacioglu, 2016). The stakeholders are those who directly benefit from the services of the 23rd Medical Group and the military health system, this includes their families. To have a ready medical force and a medically ready force is the goal of military health service. To meet the site setting, the site is an organization of health services with a Joint Commission accreditation. To meet those requirements, I would need approval through the education and training section and the hospital administrator which is the Chief of Medical Staff. That would be the approval process for the organization as well as the health of Quality/Risk Management of Patient Safety. Steps that I have taken is to speak with the Chief of Medical Staff and the Staff Nurse. The only thing is that for my program, I do not require a preceptor for this course. I can also provide insight into patient safety because I am the medical facility’s HIPAA privacy officer as well as a Trusted Care Patient Safety Coach.
References Health.mil. (2021). About the Military Health System. Retrieved July 2021, from https://www.health.mil/About-MHS Nacioglu, A. (2016). As a critical behavior to improve quality and patient safety in health care: speaking up! Safety in health, 2(10). Retrieved July 2021, from https://doi.org/10.1186/s40886-016-0021-x
