Safety

Introduction

Nursing is the kind of profession that demands the high level of commitment to ensure the efficiency in achieving the positive result. Moreover, most nurses are under the pressure of the heath care environment in which they work saving every day the lives of others. Therefore, the nurses have an obligation to provide high quality services. Safety is one of the aspects guaranteed within the health care environment. It refers to the minimization of “risk of injury to providers and patients through system effectiveness and individual performance” (Cronenwett et al., 2007).  The safety of the patients and that of the health care givers are fundamental issues in any hospital. It is a priority since the health care environment is composed of many things that when poorly managed may threaten the life of a patient. The idea of establishing high safety standards in a heath care setting has helped save many lives. In general, safety guarantees the attainment of the primary goal of the nursing profession, which is to save lives of the patients and sustain their good health.

Enhancement of the Quality of Health Care Services

Easier Goal Attainment

Safety in the health care environment will qualify the services offered by a health caregiver. Besides, it will aid to attain the set goals, and hence, ensure a high degree of efficiency and success in the treatment process (American Association of College of Nursing, 2008). Quality improvement in the health care field dates back to the 1970s when the American manufacturing industry started losing to the Japanese manufacturers. The latter challenged the American sector to empower their production and enhance their quality. As a result, they occupied a more advantageous position in the manufacturing competitive market. Safety is one of the factors affecting health care services; therefore, it is important to ensure it within the health care as a means of enhancing the services quality.

The Well-Being of the Patients

The primary importance of safety is to ensure the wellbeing of the patients who are at the center of every activity established within the health care sector (Hood, Leddy, & Pepper, 2014). It is owed to the fact that the patients are the main reason why the medical industry came into existence. Every patient records some level of disability due to the illness or condition that affects one. Some suffer mentally while the others claim deep or small physical injuries. Additionally, it is intricate for the patients to connect fully with the environment since they often become victims of the ignored safety precautions such as a broken chair, a weak bed, misplaced drugs, and inappropriate medication. Due to the poor health conditions, the patients often suffer most from the lack of safety. The bad sanitary conditions deteriorate the situation and might even lead to the loss of life. Research has demonstrated that nurses more than any other healthcare professionals can recognize, interrupt, evaluate, and correct healthcare errors as well as establish safety.

Minimizing the Risk of Injury among Patients and Healthcare Providers

Acknowledging Human Limitations

As the nursing profession demands the high level of prudence, the workers in this field are exposed to the requirement to follow the safety measures as a top priority in their practice.  It is a common knowledge that human beings are limited in what they can perform (Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, 2010). Moreover, mistakes are inevitable, and measures have to be put in place to reduce the risk and harm caused by these human errors. It constitutes a crucial ideology about safety in the healthcare setting.

Use of Safety Conscious Technology

The first step in the process of ensuring safety in a heath care setting is to identify human factors and essential principles of safe design that might affect safety (American Association of College of Nursing, 2008). Human performance experiences limitations; therefore, the best way to respond to these constraints is to establish special methods to support human performance and enhance the quality of the nurses’ engagement. Specifically, in the health care sector, it involves the application of methodologies and routines that prioritize safety. This process also includes utilizing special kind of technology that would assist in checking the performances of the nurses and ensure that every procedure is undertaken as prescribed by the healthcare provider.

Managing Errors

Errors in the healthcare sector are common. However, they, unfortunately, lead to the unsustainable and deplorable conditions of the patients, who are the ones suffering most when serious mistakes occur because of the health caregivers’ fault. Errors range from simple prescription mistakes to the negligence connected with complicated medical procedures. These misdoings might be due to the incompetence of the health care provider or the undesirable and safety insensitive working environment (Hood, Leddy, & Pepper, 2014). When the patients get to know that  they are under the wrong treatment, they might lose faith in it, which in its turn, would affect their response to the medication.

Conclusion

To summarize, the responsibility of a safe health care environment should not be laid solely on the health caregivers. Patients, their families, hospital workers, and individual clinicians have the obligation to promote safety and reduce errors which may take place within the health care environment. The primary objective of improving security is to enhance the quality of the health services. Patients need to be sure in the right process of treatment in order to have the desirable favorable response to medication. This assurance can only be attained when the medical services register moderate cases of errors. Although human performance is subject to limitations, it is possible to involve special means, procedures, routines, methodologies, and technology which would help to reduce errors and sustain the appropriate safety healthcare environment.

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