A universal aspiration for all Registered Nurses (RN) and workplace environments is to create a safe atmosphere for both the client and employees. The RN has an obligation to ensure, “a culture of safety by using established occupational health and safety practices, and other safety measures to protect client, self and colleagues from injury or potentially abusive situations” (Saskatchewan Registered Nurses’ Association, 2007, p. 11). This competency guides RN’s to provide and advocate safe practice environments. Thus, the issue this paper will discuss is Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S). The population being focused on is home care, which is, “care provided to patients in their homes to restore their functional capacity, to allow them to manage their care independently, and to enable them to remain safely in the community” (Panasci, 2009, p.190). The writer received consent from the Home Support Team Manager from the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region (PAPHR) who will be referred to as O.S. By conducting an interview in conjunction with O.S, the writer gained insight into the manager’s role, challenges, and ensuring OH&S practices. For the all-inclusive interview refer to Appendix A. This paper will depict the essence of OH&S, the manager and writer’s approaches and strategies to resolving the challenges. Management Challenge The challenge that was the focus of the interview was OH&S in a home care environment and the difficulties associated with the implementation of minimizing occupational hazards. OH&S prevents and protects employees from workplace hazards (Chadwick & Doyle, 2008). The six types of health and safety hazards are biological, chemical, ergonomic, physical, psychosocial, and safety (Chadwick &... ... middle of paper ... ...hem and if they decide not to use them, the manager could give a verbal warning for the first incident and for the second incident, give a written warning. The manager could also use this tactic with rock salt or kitty litter (Fox, 2011). Conclusion The goal of maintaining a safe environment for both the workers and clients in home care is key. This goal is a constant issue in home care; with the most significant hazards indentified are violence and environmental hazards that were addressed. O.S’s management philosophy was par with what literature was explaining. The writer explains how having a constant evaluatory tool may help with maintaining a safe environment for both client and staff. Most importantly, one of the nursing values and ethical responsibilities is, “providing safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care” (Code of Ethics, 2008, p. 8).
The NMBA sets out Statements of Principles which provide guidance to nurses regarding processes that will help to ensure that ‘safety is not compromised’ regarding decision making about nursing practice. According to the NMBA, the fundamental motivation for any decision about a care activity is to meet clients’ health needs or to enhance health outcomes. Decisions regarding activities are made in a planned and careful manner and: ‘only where there is a justifiable, evidence-based reason to perform the activity’ (NMBA: 2012, p.6). Furthermore, the NMBA points out that nursing practice decisions are more effective in a collaborative context of planning, risk management, and evaluation. Thus, organisational employers/managers, other health workers and nurses’ work together in sharing a combined responsibility to design and maintain: environments (including resources, education, policy, evaluation and competence assessment) that support safe decisions and competent, evidence-based practice to the full extent of the scope of nursing practice.
The Professional Standards of The College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia,(CRNBC) include the following four key areas: Professional responsibility and accountability, Knowledge-Based Practice,Client-Focused Provision of Service and Ethical Practice(p,2). Each of these standards are outlined well within the CRNBC professional standards, and need to be followed by each registered nurse. If these standards of care are not being met then one must evaluate their own practice or it could need to be reported to CRNBC. This paper will explore three standards of practice and their importance, including: Challenges, Professionalism and Knowledge Based-Practice. These reflect significantly on registered nurses (RN) in Canada, and how they play their role as nurses professionally.
The nurse must be committed to integrating these safety practices in her care for the clients. Critical thinking skills are also essential. The use of critical thinking enables the nurse to identify any current or potential problems that might jeopardize the patient safety. In addition, the nurse must also have the resources and supplies available to deliver safe care. For example, the nurse used the family assessment questionnaire provided to her to do an assessment on the safety of the home environment. She also needed supplies like hand sanitizer and disinfectant
The Quality and Education for Nurses (QSEN) project has set several goals for future nurses to meet in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitude (KSAs), one of which is safety (2014). The definition of safety according to QSEN is minimizing risk of harm to patients through system effectiveness and individual performance (QSEN, 2014). Since falls are such a huge occurrence in health care, preventing falls is critical for patient safety. The Joint Commission (2011) has also noted fall prevention as a National Safety Patient Goal (NPSG) 09.02.01 requiring hospitals to reduce the risk of harm resulting from falls.
Patients Safety is the most crucial about healthcare sector around the world. It is defined as ‘the prevention of patients harm’ (Kohn et al. 2000). Even thou patient safety is shared among organization members, Nurses play a key role, as they are liable for direct and continuous patients care. Nurses should be capable of recognizing the risk of patients and address it to the other multi disciplinary on time.
...huge responsibilities to the patient’s that the nurse cares for. These responsibilities require the nurse to maintain the safest environment possible for the patient. To do that the nurse must be able to meet the character requirements written about in this paper. Ethics, integrity, accountability, responsibility, and boundaries, keeps everyone in a safe environment. Without these attributes the door opens for questionable behaviors to occur inside of the hospital or other environments. Once the behaviors are allowed to occur, then the standards that nurse’s standby will diminish. Standards such as these do not just belong in the clinical setting. These are standards that everyone should live by in their day to day life. The Board of Nursing topics discussed here, are the foundation for the moral fiber that each person should weave within into their lives.
Nursing Home Abuse With over 1.5 million elderly and dependent adults now living in nursing homes throughout the country, abuse and neglect has become a widespread problem. Even though some nursing homes provide good care, many are subjecting helpless residents to needless suffering and death. Most residents in nursing homes are dependent on the staff for most or all their needs such as food, water, medicine, toileting, grooming- almost all their daily care. Unfortunately, many residents in nursing homes today are starved, dehydrated, over-medicated, and suffer painful pressure sores. They are often isolated, ignored, and deprived of social contact and stimulation.
Every hospital is committed to ensuring that their patients in stroke rehabilitation wards and other facilities are safe from any form of harm that may occur as a result of the health care providers’ negligence. Firstly, every hospital integrates quality and safety approaches into its everyday’s operations to promote and enhance the safety and quality of its environment and services respectively (Garban, 2011). This is usually complemented by other strategies meant for enhancing organizational knowledge to improve efficiency and overall productivity. Some hospitals provide further training to their health care personnel to ensure that they efficiently incorpor...
The nursing profession is a profession where people put their trust in you to provide care that is not only effective, ethical, and moral, but safe. Not all health situations are simple or by the book. Not all hospitals have the same nurse-patient ratios, equipment, supplies, or support available, but all nurses have “the professional obligation to raise concerns regarding any patient assignment that puts patients or themselves at risk for harm” (ANA, 2009). When arriving at work for a shift, nurses must ensure that the assignment is safe for not only the patients, but also for themselves. There are times when this is not the situation. In these cases, the nurse has the right to invoke Safe Harbor, because according the ANA, nurses also “have the professional right to accept, reject or object in writing to any patient assignment that puts patient or themselves at serious risk for harm” (ANA, 2009).
In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)
Because nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers, they are in the best position to improve patient safety and quality of care. While teaching and preparing students to become nurses, nurse educators have a very important role in helping to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of upcoming nurses related to patient safety. Healthcare professionals, such as nurses, are highly skilled and well educated, but the healthcare system continues to be disrupted by quality and safety issues.
The rate of errors and situations are seen as chances for improvement. A great degree of preventable adversative events and medical faults happen. They cause injury to patients and their loved ones. Events are possibly able to occur in all types of settings. Innovations and strategies have been created to identify hazards to progress patient and staff safety. Nurses are dominant to providing an atmosphere and values of safety. As an outcome, nurses are becoming safety leaders in the healthcare environment(Utrich&Kear,
The sources used were retrieved from the online Shapiro Library. Electronic databases, including CINAHL were used to do a multi-search for sources. Key works used included nursing safe staffing and nursing staff ratios and patient safety. The criteria used to select the articles were peer reviewed articles within the last five years.
Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency coordination task force with the help of government agencies. These government agencies are responsible for making health pol-icies regarding patient safety to which every HCO must follow (Schulman & Kim, 2000).
Safety is a primary concern in the health care environment, but there are still many preventable errors that occur. In fact, a study from ProPublica in 2013 found that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year suffer preventable harm in the hospital (Allen, 2013). Safety in the healthcare environment is not only keeping the patient safe, but also the employee. If a nurse does not follow procedure, they could bring harm to themselves, the patient, or both. Although it seems like such a simple topic with a simple solution, there are several components to what safety really entails. Health care professionals must always be cautious to prevent any mishaps to their patients, especially when using machines or lifting objects, as it has a higher