Reflection Learning

Describe the culture of your organization as it relates to patient safety.

Patient safety is a priority in our organization and to ensure that it is achieved, the organization encourages comprehensive communication between the healthcare staff. The organization also emphasized standardization in the delivery of services and stylistic practices are not tolerated. Nurses and other staff members are constantly trained about vulnerabilities and the promotion of patient safety. Additionally, the hospital policy requires that all mistakes in service delivery are reported to the right authorities.

Identify one opportunity to improve patient safety outcomes. Propose a strategy for the implementation of this improvement initiative.

An example of an opportunity to improve patient safety outcomes is the use of monitoring technology. Usually, healthcare workers attend to many patients during their shifts which makes it difficult for them to keep an eye on all of them. Monitoring technology can help notify the nurse when there is a problem with the patient, for example, in case of falls, and can also be used to verify medication thus preventing patient harm (Banka et al, 2018).

The implementation of this improvement initiative will require the involvement of the senior hospital management who will ensure the purchase and installation of the monitoring technology. The healthcare staff will also be trained on how to use this monitoring technology to enhance patient safety. There will be a way to measure the performance of the monitoring technology in terms of enhancing patient safety. This will determine whether or not the initiative will be fully adopted.

Describe the current technology used to support patient safety. Identify the potential unintended consequences of this technology. Propose solutions to address these potential consequences

The current technology used to support patient safety in our organization is the electronic health record. This is a way of storing patient information electronically. They help to ensure patient safety by reducing errors and misinterpretations that would negatively affect patient care. They also contain the patient's medical history which helps healthcare professionals to carry out accurate diagnoses. It also helps to identify any allergies to medication that the patient might be having (Abul-Husn & Kenny, 2019).

One unintended consequence of this technology is privacy and security issues. Electronic health records can be hacked and when this happens, sensitive patient data can fall into the wrong hands. Another consequence is that data could get lost or destroyed leading to treatment errors. There are also chances of healthcare providers relying on inaccurate data during treatment especially if the patient's medical record has not been updated in a long time (Abul-Husn & Kenny, 2019).

       To address these potential consequences, it would be important to ensure that all computers used to access patients' records are secured with heavy passwords. It is also important to ensure that only authorized personnel can access these records and that they only access what they need. It is important to ensure that patient's medical records are updated during every visit to ensure that the information available about them is accurate and up to date.

 Describe an incident in which patient safety was or had the potential to be compromised due to an emphasis on volume-based care.

Since volume-based care reimburses the service provider for particular services offered, most healthcare providers were only focused on providing more services (Jensen et al, 2018). There was a time our organization was using volume-based care and so providers would speed through patients to provide more services. During this time, a lot of patients were readmitted to the hospital due to incorrect medications, reactions to certain medications, among other causes. This is because the healthcare providers did not pay attention to patients' medical details.

 

References

Abul-Husn, N. S., & Kenny, E. E. (2019). Personalized medicine and the power of electronic health records. Cell, 177(1), 58-69. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867419302223 (Links to an external site.)

Banka, S., Madan, I., & Saranya, S. S. (2018). Smart healthcare monitoring using IoT. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 13(15), 11984-11989. Retrieved from http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer18/ijaerv13n15_40.pdf (Links to an external site.)

Jensen, J. K., Dyre, L., Jørgensen, M. E., Andreasen, L. A., & Tolsgaard, M. G. (2018). Simulation‐based point‐of‐care ultrasound training: a matter of competency rather than volume. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica, 62(6), 811-819. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aas.13083